The Queen of Thieves
by XfreakXninjaX
Summary: Growing up in District 80 is rough. For Ren, the only way that she could get by was to be a thief, and she just so happened to become one of the greatest thieves in all of Soul Society in the process. Along the way, she gets to join the Gotei 13, where her life will take a drastic turn, and one particular Captain's life will change right along with hers. Shinji/OC
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: Okay, so here's another new story. Unlike **__**The Illusion of Fear**__**, this one has a definite pairing of Shinji/OC. Updates might come a little slow on this one, depending on how all of you readers react to it. If you seem to like it, I'll try to put them out sooner. If not, then we'll see. Anywho, please follow, favorite, or review, because they make my day, in all honesty. Enjoy, and feel free to give me feedback!**_

Chapter One- The Queen of Thieves

It was a cool, clear day in Soul Society, the kind of day that usually brought a certain calming quality with it, but today was an exception. There was a buzz going about Soul Society, one that had unseated and seated Shinigami both whispering, trying to gather the latest information on the newest rumor. One captain in particular, however, was completely clueless to the gossip that was making its way about. As Shinji Hirako made his way towards his division, he was oblivious to all of the quiet whispers and murmurs that were growing more and more frequent as the morning went on.

He was almost all the way to his office before he noticed the groups of people that were huddled around each other, and the constant murmurs that were coming from them. Now he was curious, but as soon as he tried to get their attention, they all walked off, seemingly not wanting to get caught gossiping while on duty. By the time his lieutenant had found him, the captain was rather frustrated, and he would not surrender until he figured out what was going on.

"Captain Hirako-"Aizen began, only to be cut off as soon as he started.

"What is all of the commotion about?" Shinji demanded.

"You haven't heard?" Aizen wondered.

"If I had, I wouldn't have asked!" Shinji retorted, his frustration increasing by the second at this point.

"Lieutenant Ōmaeda has retired and Captain Shihōin has already chosen his replacement. They say that the replacement didn't even go to the Academy, and that she got her from District 80 in Southern Rukongai," Aizen explained.

"She?" Shinji pondered.

"Yes, and rumor has it that Captain Shihōin went all the way to District 80 herself to get her," Aizen continued.

"And just what is so special about her?" Shinji asked.

"Apparently, it's the Queen of Thieves." Shinji had heard of the Queen of Thieves before, but he couldn't believe it. Why would Yoruichi replace Marenoshin Ōmaeda with some crook, and the proclaimed Queen of Thieves for that matter? It was said that the Queen of Thieves could steal anything, money, jewelry, any sort of valuable, you name it, and she could steal it without leaving any sort of trace. There was even a rumor that she had stolen from the Shihōin family themselves, but that she had come back and left the artifact where she found it once she had figured out what it was. It was merely a family memento, worth nothing on the black market, so she returned it in the same way that she took it: unseen and untraceable.

"Is she here?" Shinji asked.

"I believe so," Aizen answered, while nodding. "I believe that is the purpose of the meeting that we have been called to."

"Meeting? What meeting?" Shinji asked, exasperated.

"I was coming to find you and tell you," Aizen told him. "The Captain-Commander has called an impromptu meeting with the Captains and Lieutenants. I would assume it would be about the new Lieutenant."

"Then what are we waiting for? We'll be late at this rate," Shinji stated, turning around and beginning to make his way to the First Division. Aizen just shook his head and followed behind his captain.

"I wonder what she looks like," Shinji pondered.

"What?" Aizen asked, surprised by his captain's sudden outburst.

"The Lieutenant! She's from District 80, so I bet she's from one of those Thief Clans. She's probably some big, rough, ugly woman. Ugh, I can only imagine," Shinji commented, shuddering in disgust in the process.

"I suppose that could be true," Aizen muttered, trying to understand why his captain had chosen to go through that particular thought process.

"Oi, Kensei!" Shinji called. The Captain of the Ninth Division turned around to see who was calling him.

"What?" he called back, waiting for Shinji and his Lieutenant to catch up with him and his Lieutenant, Mashiro Kuna, who was surprisingly quiet for once.

"Any idea who this new Lieutenant is?" Shinji asked him as they continued walking.

"Not a clue. None of the Captains have met her except for Yoruichi," Kensei told him.

"What? So nobody knows anything about her, accept for these wild rumors that are going around," Shinji stated, kicking a rock that was in his way.

"Yeah, 'Queen of Thieves' my ass. That's a myth," Kensei scoffed.

"Ah, I wonder where they would even get that idea," Shinji added. He was startled when Hiyori Sarugaki walked up beside him and…did not hit him. She was quiet. He thought hell had frozen over.

"Uh, Hiyori," Shinji began.

"Is it true?" she interrupted, keeping her eyes ahead of her.

"I don't know. Probably not, but I can't say for sure," Shinji told her.

"Of course it's not! That's just a myth! I don't know why you and Mashiro are so wound up about it," Kensei scoffed, again, looking off to the side. He didn't believe that the "Queen of Thieves" was here, but he was curious about this new Lieutenant, and just why Yoruichi had chosen her of all people.

"Well, I guess we'll find out," Shinji commented as the finally reached the meeting hall. As the doors were opened, he saw that they were the last ones there. They quickly took their places and were silent so the Captain-Commander could begin.

"Let this meeting begin!" Yamamoto stated, slamming the end of his cane against the ground. "I have called you here today regarding the Lieutenant of the Second Division. As you have heard, Marenoshin Ōmaeda has retired, and Captain Shihōin has already chosen his replacement. Would you step forward, Captain?" Yoruichi gladly bowed her head and stepped forward, rather excited to bring in her new Lieutenant.

"She's not in here," Shinji thought. "But where is she?"

"Captain Shihōin, is it true that the replacement that you have chosen has not attended the academy, and has not even stepped near the Gotei 13?" the Captain-Commander asked. Everybody expected her to deny it, but they were in for a surprise.

"It's true," she stated, shocking everyone.

"Then why do you think it is justified to make her your Lieutenant, when she is not even qualified?" Yamamoto asked.

"Oh, she's more than qualified. I'm sure you've heard of the Queen of Thieves, haven't you? And I'm sure that you heard that she stole from my family as well, even though she returned it. Well, I can tell you why she did it," Yoruichi stated, piquing the interest of all of the Captains and Lieutenants.

"Hm? How would you know that?" Shunsui Kyōraku asked, pushing his hat back slightly.

"I dared her to," Yoruichi answered, with a large grin on her face.

"You dared her?" Jūshiro Ukitake repeated.

"Yes, I dared her. I met her a few times before that, and on one of the later times, I dared her to steal from my family. I didn't think she could do it, but she did, and she didn't even leave a trace of Reiatsu," Yoruichi explained. "We met many times after that, and I trust her with my life. She is a commendable warrior and a master of her craft, so I believe that she is more than qualified to become my Lieutenant."

"That can't be true! The 'Queen of Thieves' is just a myth!" Kensei stated, voicing the opinions of many of the people in the room.

"I'm afraid she's not," Yamamoto commented, shocking everybody except for a few. "After hearing so many rumors, I sent Yoruichi out to inspect them, and in turn, it seems she found the Queen of Thieves, even though she failed to report it to me."

"And ruin the surprise?" Yoruichi teased. The Captain-Commander let out a sigh, hoping that he wouldn't regret his next decision.

"I will allow it," he stated. "But be warned, if she is suspected of any criminal activity, I will apprehend her myself."

"Oh, she really isn't like that. She was just trying to make it by, and she just so happened to become one of the greatest thieves ever known in the process," Yoruichi laughed.

"I can't believe we're letting a criminal in our ranks," Kensei muttered.

"You're only a criminal if you get caught, Kensei," Love laughed. He, along with a few others, was excited to see this new Lieutenant. They were curious to meet the woman who was so notorious for her crimes, but could never be tied to them or caught, and was therefore not technically even guilty of committing them.

"So, where is she?" Rose asked.

"Yes, bring her here, Yoruichi, so we may see this thief," Yamamoto agreed, still anxious about his choice.

"She's been on the roof the whole time," Yoruichi told them.

"Bull. There is no way she was right outside and nobody saw or sensed her," Kensei grunted.

"I told you she was a master of her craft," Yoruichi snickered. "I wouldn't be surprised if she pickpocketed some of you while you were coming in."

"Now you're just making stuff up," Lisa Yadomaru commented, pushing her glasses up.

"I mean, I might have told her to, you know, to prove a point," Yoruichi stated slyly. "I guess we'll see what goodies she got."

"REN!" Yoruichi yelled, making those who were standing close to her cover their ears in shock. There was silence for a moment, but soon enough, the doors began to slowly open. Nobody knew what to expect. A few (like Shinji) were expecting some manly, rough looking woman, while others were expecting some scraggly, sinister looking woman. None of them were right.

As the doors finally opened, they couldn't believe what they were seeing. Her body was very similar to Yoruichi's, except she might have been an inch or so shorter, but everything else was almost exact; she was even wearing the same type of sleeveless uniform that Yoruichi had on under her Captain's haori, except she was wearing an orange sash instead of a sword belt. She wasn't very pale or very tan; she was somewhere in between, and her skin looked soft to the touch. Her dark brown hair barely went past her jawline, but it was shorter in the back than it was in the front, with a light curl to it, and it shined with red and orange highlights in the light. What was most striking was her eyes. They were a deep, burnt orange color, finishing off her appearance and making her give off the essence of the autumn season. She was beautiful, and there was no way that she was the Queen of Thieves.

"Everybody, this is Ren. Ren, meet your new co-workers," Yoruichi announced. Ren gave a light bow, and then walked across the room towards Yoruichi.

"So, what'd you get?" Yoruichi asked, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Ren held out a sack to her, and it looked to be rather full.

"Everything they had," Ren answered, returning Yoruichi's grin. Everyone started to feel around their pockets, and sure enough, they came up short, even the Captain-Commander. Yoruichi opened the sack, and pulled out a few of the money bags.

"My, my, you really did!" she laughed, beginning to throw the bags to their prospective owners.

"Well, I do aim to please, Captain," Ren told her, putting a slight emphasis on 'Captain'.

"There's no way!" Kensei roared.

"Oh, deal with it," Yoruichi retorted, throwing him his money bag. "You just don't want to admit that you got pickpocketed by a girl." Kensei was about to say something back, but the Captain-Commander cut him off.

"It was…an impressive display of skill," he conceded, as he caught his money bag. "Just don't make it a habit."

"Don't make it a habit? That's it?" Kensei asked, astonished. He and a few others couldn't get over what had just happened, but some of the others thought that it was hilarious, which included Shunsui and Love and a few others.

"Yes, that is all. His meeting is dismissed. Make sure to give your Lieutenant her badge, Captain Shihōin."

Before anyone else could say a word, Yoruichi and her new Lieutenant Shunpo'd out of the hall, leaving several confused people in their wake, including our very own Shinji Hirako. He, however, was not stunned by their speed. No, he was mesmerized by the beauty of the Queen of Thieves and also by the skill that she possessed. To put it simply, he was smitten.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two-Their First Meeting

"That was so funny," Ren breathed, barely able to stop her laughter long enough to speak.

"I told you it would be! Their faces were priceless!" Yoruichi jeered. They had Shunpo'd their way back to the Second Division, and once they entered Yoruichi's office, they both collapsed to the ground laughing.

"I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that!" Ren added, holding her ribs even tighter.

"Oh, Ren, you are not going to regret this, I swear," Yoruichi told her, finally beginning to catch her breath.

"If you keep letting me do things like this, I know I won't," Ren agreed, getting off of the floor and then helping Yoruichi do the same. They both sat down behind their own desks, and turned their chairs to where they were facing each other.

* * *

><p>"Captain Hirako?" Aizen shook the shoulder of his captain, trying to snap him out of his thoughts. Most of the other captains and lieutenants had already left, but Shinji hadn't budged an inch. Aizen was under the impression that he hadn't even blinked, either.<p>

"Haha! Go on back to your division, Sousuke. We'll take care of him," Shunsui laughed. Jushiro, Lisa, and Love were also with him, and Jushiro was the only one that wasn't laughing at Shinji's expense. Aizen just stood there for a moment, unsure if it was really wise to abandon his captain here, with these people, but he had work to do, so he left without another word.

"Oh, Shinji~!" Shunsui sang, standing in front of Shinji. To his surprise, he received no reply. Shinji just stood there motionless.

"Uh, do you think he's okay?" Jushiro asked, trying to see what Shinji was staring at. If he wasn't mistaken, he was staring at the spot where Yoruichi and her new lieutenant had been standing.

"Probably," Love told him, snapping his fingers in front of Shinji's face. He still wasn't moving.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Kensei demanded, still angry from that thief's 'display' earlier.

"I think he's a little 'stunned'," Shunsui told him, the grin never leaving his face.

"By what?" Kensei asked. He looked at where Shinji was staring, and the answer to his question hit him like a brick, and that particular brick had 'rage' written all over it.

"Are you kidding me? That **crook**?" Kensei yelled, smacking Shinji in the back of the head, hitting him so hard that he knocked him to the floor.

"Ow! Geez, what the hell was that for?" Shinji yelled, not only angry that Kensei had hit him, but also angry that he had been knocked out of his thoughts of Ren.

"Get over it! I can't believe you're thinking about that-that thief!" Kensei yelled back at him. He didn't think that even Shinji could be that desperate.

"Did you see her? She was gorgeous," Shinji told him. "I think she's my first love."

"You say that about all pretty girls, Shinji," Lisa reminded him.

"Well, maybe, but it's different this time," Shinji stated.

"It better not be! How could you even think to associate with that criminal?" Kensei asked, exasperated. He knew that at this point, no matter what he said to him, Shinji was lost; Shinji had his eyes set on the thief, and Kensei wasn't sure that anything would be able to pry them off.

"Well, she's obviously not one anymore!" Love laughed, slapping Kensei on the back.

"Yep, she's a Soul Reaper now. Why don't we go and meet her?" Shunsui suggested. Shinji's eyes grew wide at the statement, and a jolt of excitement went through him.

"Tch, have fun. Count me out, I have more important things to do," Kensei scoffed, walking off to tend to his own business, giving up on the matter altogether.

"That must have been a real shot to his pride," Lisa commented. Love hummed in agreement.

"Why are we waiting? Let's go!" Shinji called. He was already at the door, ready to lead the charge to Yoruichi's office in the Second Division. Jushiro was startled by his sudden urgency, but Shunsui and the others just laughed at him. They couldn't what to see what he would do when he got to see Ren up close and personal.

* * *

><p>"So, we haven't been able have a good talk in a while. How have things been?" Yoruichi began, folding her hands behind her head and propping her feet up on her desk. Ren let out a short sigh, leaning back in her chair, and crossing her arms over her stomach.<p>

"The Thief Clans were pissed, that's for sure," she started. "Not that I care, really. I mean, I hate them, so I don't care what they do, but I don't want them bringing any trouble here. That would not look too good for me."

"I thought you didn't associate with the Thief Clans?" Yoruichi pressed.

"I don't, which is ironic, but they tried their hardest to get me to join them. They were starting to get pretty violent when I left," Ren told her. As there name suggested, Thief Clans were clans of thieves, mainly based around the outer districts of Rukongai. Their thieves were trained from infancy to steal, to spy, and even to assassinate. There were several clans, all distant from one another, which was a good thing, considering that they were definitely not friendly with each other. They were always trying to out-do each other, and recently, they tried to do that by recruiting the Queen of Thieves herself.

"Why did you never associate with them? I was under the impression that all thieves were in one of the clans," Yoruichi continued. Ren was quiet for a moment. Her vendetta against the Thief Clans was one that started at birth, one that still hadn't died, and one that probably never would die.

"I was born into one. When I was little, I went through my training pretty fast, and my parents were thrilled. I didn't really understand how wrong stealing was at the time; it was all that I'd ever known, and at that point, it was all that I was supposed to know. But, I had a brother. He, he was strong, but he wasn't good at his thief training, so my parents disowned him and he was exiled from the clan. I loved my brother to death, so I was pretty heartbroken when they took him away from me. I figured that the best way for me to get back at them was to take away what they were so proud of, so I slacked off in my training. It made them so mad, and they exiled me pretty quickly after that. They left me on the streets of District 80 in North Rukongai, and I just sort of went from there. I traveled, stealing things on the way, selling what I could, and making a small name for myself in the process. After a while, I reached District 80 in South Rukongai," Ren explained. She stopped for a moment, going through her old memories. She couldn't even remember all of the times that she had pickpocketed people, or the amount of times that she would steal food from a merchant's stall, or the countless homes that she had broken into to steal valuables. She was trying to make it by, and stealing, being a thief, was all that she had ever known.

"Ren?" Yoruichi called, concern laced in her voice.

"Hm? Oh, sorry. Uh, yeah, I found my brother in South Rukongai. The thing was, when he was exiled, the clan that we were from did something to him. I have no idea what they did, but he had lost his memories. I've never heard of them wiping an exiles memory before, but they did it to him. It took forever, but he finally remembered me, but that was it. It's funny, though. They said he was talentless, that he wasn't worth the air he breathed, but he turned out to be one of the greatest swordsmen in all of Soul Society. If they had just kept him, that clan would have been at the top. Their loss, though, not his," Ren continued, shrugging her shoulders.

"Who is he?" Yoruichi asked.

"You haven't heard of him. He's really only heard of in the outer districts. We split up a long time ago. I was through with traveling, and he wanted to keep traveling to fight people. We still met up from time to time, though. I told him that I was coming here and everything," Ren told her, breaking Yoruichi's curiosity in one strike.

"He didn't want to come, too?" Yoruichi pondered.

"He'll come here, eventually. He'll run out of people to fight and he'll have no choice but to come here," Ren told her, with a knowing look on her face.

"He'll come here to find her, too," Ren thought. She decided to keep that little detail to herself, though. It would only complicate things.

"So, anyways, on a happier note, what will my first orders be?" Ren asked, eager to begin her work. She was ready to slay some Hollows, or maybe even train some newbies. She had a tanto blade strapped to each of her thighs; these tanto blades were her zanpakutō, her trusted partners that had seen her through many a fight and theft. Yoruichi seemed to think for a moment, but an idea hit her, and that mischievous grin hit her face again.

"Make me lunch," Yoruichi told her.

"What?" Ren asked, not believing what she had heard.

"Make me lunch," Yoruichi repeated.

"Don't you have people to do that?" Ren asked.

"Yes, but they can't cook like you can, my dear Ren," Yoruichi taunted. Ren knew that Yoruichi loved her cooking, and she didn't mind doing it because she loved to cook, but it seemed strange that it was her first duty as a Shinigami…

"Fine," Ren conceded, getting out of her chair. "Where is everything?"

"In the back. I had it all set up just for you!" Yoruichi cheered. "And make plenty, because I'm sure we'll have guests!"

* * *

><p>Shinji was having second thoughts. As soon as they reached the Second Division, he froze. His nerves got the best of him, and he wasn't sure if he could face the beautiful lieutenant anymore. What if she didn't like him? What if her personality didn't match her looks? What if she wasn't single? What if she <strong>hated<strong> him?

"Nope, keep moving," Shunsui stated, pushing Shinji forward towards Yoruichi's office. He and Love ended up having to drag him the rest of the way and Lisa laughed the entire way.

"Knock," Love demanded, as they finally reached the office.

"What?" Shinji asked incredulously. He tried to smooth down the wrinkles in his haori from where Shunsui and Love had dragged him.

"It's not hard, Shinji. Take your hand, ball it up, and tap it against the door," Lisa mocked, enjoying every minute of Shinji's discomfort.

"But-"Shinji began.

"No buts, just actions," Shunsui told him, taking Shinji's hand and making him knock.

"Wait! I'm not-"Shinji tried to walk away, but this time, Jushiro stopped him from walking away,

"You have to start somewhere," Jushiro assured him, giving him a smile to encourage him.

"Come in! ~" Yoruichi called. Shinji could have sworn that his heart skipped a beat. He was here, she was here, and the meeting was bound to take place. And now, thanks to his oh so supportive friends, he couldn't avoid it.

"Here we go! ~" Shunsui sang as he opened the door. "Yoruichi-chan! ~"

"Shunsui! Jushiro! Love! Lisa! Hehe, Shinji," Yoruichi greeted with a sly grin. Shinji's face fell. Was it that obvious? And just where was Ren at?!

"Lunch is just about ready, so make yourselves comfortable!" Yoruichi told them.

"Lunch?" Jushiro asked.

"Yes, I had Ren fix something up for us," Yoruichi told them. She already had a table set out along with mats for them to sit on. They made sure that there was an empty seat beside Shinji, although he tried to fight it.

"So, how's the new lieutenant going?" Love asked. Lisa snickered as Shinji's eyes widened at the mention of Ren.

"Oh, it's great. She really knows how to have fun in the work place," Yoruichi answered with a suggestive tone in her voice. Shinji couldn't help it as a small trail of blood came out of his nose, and Shunsui had a pretty big smile on his face, too. Jushiro, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was slightly blushing. He could tell it was going to be a long lunch.

"Yoruichi-chan! Lunch is done!" Goodness, Shinji loved the sound of her voice.

"Our guests are here, so go ahead and bring it out!" Yoruichi called back.

Nobody but Yoruichi could believe their eyes. There was so much food! Ren just kept bringing more and more plates in, and they were stacked with rice, vegetables, all kinds of meat, and even some sushi. She also brought some tea to go with it.

"Beautiful!" Love cried.

"I see you've outdone yourself again, Ren," Yoruichi commented.

"Well, I aim to please, Yoruichi-ch- uh, Captain," Ren replied, quickly correcting the way she addressed Yoruichi.

"That you do, Ren. Now, let's not wait any longer. This food looks too good to just be sitting there," Yoruichi stated. Ren finally sat down, and of course, she had to sit by Shinji. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and his breathing was quickening. Love was on the verge of tears with his laughter, and Lisa was having a hard time keeping hers in.

"So, Ren-chan, what brings you to the Gotei 13?" Shunsui asked, generally curious. Shinji, on the other hand, was mildly agitated that Shunsui was speaking so familiarly with her.

"It's just something different to do, really, and that one played a role in it, too," Ren told him, pointing her thumb at Yoruichi.

"Don't pretend like you don't love it," Yoruichi commented, although it was muffled by her mouthful of food.

"Beautiful, Yoruichi, beautiful," Ren replied, shaking her head.

"It's amazing!" Love sang, swallowing a mouthful of food.

"Ah, it is! You're a great cook, Ren-chan!" Jushiro agreed. Shinji couldn't believe his ears. Now Jushiro was acting all cozy with her?

"Thank you, Captain Ukitake," Ren replied.

"There's no need to be so formal here, Ren. You can call me Jushiro if you want," Jushiro told her.

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Jushiro," Ren said, giving him a smile to go along with it. If her food wasn't so damn good, and if her smile wasn't so damn beautiful, Shinji might have been a little mad at Jushiro. But with a mouthful of such amazing food, there was no way that he could be mad, no matter how jealous he was of Jushiro and Shunsui for even being able to talk to Ren.

"How do you like the food, Shinji?" Lisa asked him, trying to get him to speak.

"It's, uh, it's good," he stuttered. The uncertainty in his voice almost made it sound like he thought it was bad. Yoruichi smacked her forehead in frustration.

"You know, Shinji, Ren could probably use someone to show her around the divisions. Would you be able to do that?" Shunsui asked, trying to save Shinji.

"I, uh, I think Aizen has work for me to do," Shinji answered. Love almost choked on his food.

"You never do it anyways," Lisa commented, trying to push him on.

"He, uh, said it was important," Shinji replied. Jushiro shook his head this time, showing just how hopeless Shinji was.

"Well, Ren is a smart girl. I'm sure she'll find her way around," Yoruichi commented, sending a small glare towards Shinji.

"Well, somebody did already offer to show me around," Ren added, making everyone look at her in surprise.

"Really? Who?" Yoruichi asked.

"It was a lieutenant. I think he said his name was Sousuke Aizen," Ren told them.

"I'm going to kill him," Shinji thought.

"Well, how nice of him to offer!" Shunsui commented, nudging Jushiro's arm to get him to go along with him.

"Well, he is a very nice young man," Jushiro added.

"He's not bad looking, either," Yoruichi stated, joining in on the action. Jealousy was raging in Shinji's eyes, along with a hint of anger.

"I suppose, I mean, I've only seen him once, so," Ren replied. Shinji couldn't take it anymore.

"I have to go," he said, standing up quickly.

"But you hardly ate anything," Love told him, trying to get him to sit back down.

"I'm not hungry," he replied, quickly storming out of Yoruichi's office, leaving a moment of silence in his wake.

"Is he, uh, usually like this?" Ren asked, taking a sip of tea.

"No, not usually," Yoruichi breathed, mildly disappointed. She quickly went over to her desk and wrote something down on a piece of paper, folding it up when she was done.

"Lisa, will you drop this by Fifth Division on your way back to Eighth?" Yoruichi asked.

"Of course," Lisa replied, having a pretty good idea of what was on it.

* * *

><p>Aizen could tell that something was wrong with his captain; he was doing paper work, not saying a word, with a very broken air about him. Aizen had tried to ask him what was wrong, but Shinji wouldn't say a word to him. He merely huffed and kept writing.<p>

"Shinji! Captain Shihōin sent you a message!" Lisa called as she opened the door to the Fifth Division office. Shinji just huffed in reply and kept doing his paperwork.

"What is wrong with him?" Aizen asked her.

"He's just got a stick up his ass, that's all. And it's his own fault," Lisa told him, putting the piece of paper on his desk. "See ya."

"Captain, I-"Aizen began.

"Just go," Shinji cut him off. He knew what Aizen was going to ask him, and he just wanted to get it over with.

"Al-alright, Captain, if you insist," Aizen replied, quickly leaving the office.

"If you insist my ass," Shinji muttered, dropping his pen on his desk. He stared at the note that Lisa had left on his desk for a moment. He thought about not reading it, but what if it was about Ren? He quickly unfolded the note, and dropped it as soon as he read it.

"Dumbass" was the only thing written on the paper, and at this point, he couldn't help but agree. He had acted like a rude asshole to Ren, and he just let his lieutenant go off to show her around, when it should have been him. He should have been one standing by Ren, talking to her, complimenting her, telling her some stupid joke so he could see her smile again. Her smile had sent a jolt of excitement right through his heart, and now, he would be lucky if he ever saw it again. And he had no one to blame but himself.

_**Author's Note: Alright, so we have some character interaction here, and a little bit of Ren's background. Poor Shinji. He just can't catch a break can he? Anyways, a special thanks to kodokuna 13, ocmaker317, and EaSnowPw for the follows and favorites, and especially to wolfgirl3090 and kdeargh for the reviews! They really made my day! As for everyone else, please enjoy the new chapter, and please follow, favorite, or review if you like it!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note: Thank you for the review, EaSnowPw! Don't worry, Ren will share plenty of her opinions in this chapter! I think this one turned out to be a little longer than the last, but there is a lot more interaction between Shinji and Ren in this one. Updates might start coming a little slower, though. I'm thinking about posting another story, and I might be losing internet for a few weeks soon. But, I will keep writing while my internet's out, so I'll have plenty of material to post when I get it back. Anyways, thank you for reading, and please follow, favorite, or review if you like it! Enjoy! Whew, that was a long author's note! **_

Chapter Three-Round Two

"Hey, uh Ren?"

"Yes, Yoruichi?" Ren looked up from her paperwork to see just what her captain wanted. Yoruichi was twiddling her thumbs and looking off to her side, unable to look at Ren, and for once her life, looking nervous and almost shy.

"How was, uh, your tour?" Yoruichi wasn't really sure how to bring it up, but she couldn't really find a way to be subtle about it, either.

"You mean how was Aizen?" Ren countered, with a suggestive flick of her eyebrows, knowing just how Yoruichi would take it. And just as she expected, Yoruichi's eyes grew wide and she started stammering very badly. To see a woman that was usually so carefree and jovial and confident be so nervous and embarrassed was hysterical to Ren, but for the sake of her beloved captain, she contained herself.

"W-w-w-what do you, w-w-w-what-"Yoruichi couldn't even finish her sentence because she was stuttering so badly. She already felt bad for causing Shinji to make an ass out of himself earlier, but she didn't think it would go this far; if it had, she would have felt awful.

"I'm kidding, Yoruichi!" Ren laughed, unable to contain herself any longer. "Oh, the look on your face!"

"Th-that's not funny!" Yoruichi indignantly yelled, a light blush going across her face.

"Mhm. You finally got a taste of your own medicine and you couldn't handle it, just admit it," Ren boasted, proud that she had finally 'gotten-one-over' on her captain.

"You didn't answer my question!" Yoruichi scoffed, trying to change the subject.

"Do you really want to know?" Ren challenged. Yoruichi swallowed hard, afraid of what she was going to hear.

"Y-yes," she finally answered, closing her eyes and bracing herself.

"What do you want me to say?" Ren asked, prodding her on.

"Just tell me!" Yoruichi shouted.

"It was pretty bad," Ren told. Yoruichi let a long sigh of relief, sending a small thanks to the Spirit King that her fears did not come to fruition.

"Whew. Why was it so bad?" Yoruichi asked.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, he seems nice and all and it was very kind of him to show me around, but something about him was just off. He kind of reminded me of crooked noble that I used to associate with back in the day," Ren told her, clasping her hands behind her head.

"A crooked noble?" Yoruichi repeated, not really understanding what Ren meant.

"Like he has some plot up his sleeve," Ren explained. "I mean, I highly doubt that he has something up his sleeve, but it just feels that way."

"Huh, that's interesting. So, uh, what did you think about our lunch?" Yoruichi asked slyly, trying to be sneaky about her 'information gathering'.

"Strained, at times, but mostly enjoyable. Love and Lisa were pretty hysterical, and Shunsui and Jushiro were very charming gentlemen, I guess you could say," Ren told her, unaware of what her captain was going at.

"And, uh, what about Captain Hirako?" Yoruichi added. Ren just stared at her blankly for a moment.

"I can't believe someone doesn't like my cooking," Ren muttered. She looked like she was on the verge of tears, so Yoruichi panicked.

"I'm sure he didn't mean anything like that, Ren!" Yoruichi assured her, waving her hands in front of her, trying to keep Ren's mind on her so it wouldn't dwell.

"Do you think so?" Ren sniffed, genuinely upset at the thought of her food not being good.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it. He must have just been having a bad day or something. He's usually a really great guy," Yoruichi told her. There was some hope left for Shinji, and she would be damned if she let it get away!

"I guess, I mean, he didn't seem too friendly but," Ren trailed off at the end of her sentence, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger and looking at the floor.

"But what?" Yoruichi demanded. She **had** to know what Ren was going to say. It would kill her if she didn't find out.

"I-I don't know. I, uh, I like his spiritual pressure," Ren told her. Yoruichi was at a loss for words for a moment.

"What?" Yoruichi's curt statement made Ren blush a little, not liking the pressure she was being put under.

"It-it felt nice. It was really warm and inviting, I guess. I felt really safe and comfortable around it, and I was kind of hoping that he would be, you know, like his spiritual pressure, because, I mean, I was just happy being around it," Ren stuttered. Yoruichi was speechless again. That asshole Shinji had better get his shit together, or Yoruichi was going to have to have a very nice little talk with him.

"Ren,I-" Yoruichi was cut off by a knock on her door. Before she could finish her statement or even tell whoever was at the door to come on, Shunsui decided to invite himself in, bringing a very lovely and expensive looking vase of flowers with him.

"Oh, Ren-chan!~Look what I found outside!" Shunsui sang. He seemed to almost glide as he made his way over to her, putting the vase in her arms. His grin grew wider once he saw how she blushed.

"Oh my, what nice flowers! What's the occasion, Kyouraku?" Yoruichi asked, eyeing Shunsui

suspiciously. He just gave her a wink and continued with his plan.

"I don't know, Yoruichi-chan! I believe they're from Captain Hirako! I have business to attend to, so I'll see you later, ladies!" Shunsui let himself out, hoping that his plan would work.

"Captain Hirako?" Ren muttered, putting the vase down on her desk, and picking up the note that came with the flowers.

"What's it say?" Yoruichi asked, curious as to the 'message' that Shinji had left for Ren. Ren unfolded the note, and quickly read it. Yoruichi knew it was good when Ren blushed as bright as a tomato.

"Read it to me!" Yoruichi explained.

"You do it," Ren told her, handing her the letter. She didn't have the gall to read it out loud.

"Fine. Here we go. _My dearest Ren, I apologize for the way that I acted earlier. Your wonderful smile left me speechless, and your beauty clouded my mind to the point where I could not think or act straight. I hope that you fill forgive me, and that you will allow me to see you again soon. Yours truly, Shinji Hirako_," Yoruichi read.

"Shunsui, you smooth bastard," Yoruichi thought to herself.

"See? I told you he wasn't like that all the time!" Yoruichi cheered.

"Ah, Shunsui was real nice doing that for Shinji, wasn't he?" Ren commented, smiling at the shocked look on Yoruichi's face.

"How did you know?" Yoruichi stuttered.

"There are no traces of his spiritual pressure on the flowers. I know I haven't been around him long, but I know what his spiritual pressure feels like. It was a nice thought, though, and I can take a hint," Ren explained. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Wait, where are you going?" Yoruichi called.

"I gotta go and meet someone."

* * *

><p>"Stupid Sousuke, stupid lunch, stupid people," Shinji grumbled as he furiously did more paperwork. Aizen had come back in about an hour ago, and even though Shinji had <strong>not <strong>asked him, he proceeded to tell Shinji about what a nice young woman Ren was, and how he had got to talk to her the entire time they were out. He claimed that he had learned quite a bit about her, like what some of her interests were and some details about her past. After he had done a little bit more paperwork, Aizen left for the day, leaving Shinji to brood by himself.

"What!?" he yelled when heard somebody knock on his door. He was in no mood to talk to anyone right now, or to even see another human being for that matter.

Ren was half tempted to turn away once she heard the anger and irritation in Shinji's voice, but she knew that she had to toughen it out, especially if she wanted to get on the Fifth Division Captain's good side. The main thing that kept her from turning away, though, was his spiritual pressure. It gave her such comfort and solace, that she thought about just hiding her own spiritual pressure and hiding there for the rest of the day just so she could be near it. He might consider that creepy, though, so she decided against it. She breathed in deeply to calm herself, and once she felt her heartbeat slow down a little bit, she opened the door.

"H-hi, Captain Hirako," she barely managed to greet him. He looked like he had seen a ghost when she walked in. He was embarrassed about earlier, and he didn't know what to say. He could feel his face turning red, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"R-Ren," he stuttered. He didn't know where to go from there. Should he apologize, compliment her, or be nosy and ask about her little walk with Aizen?

"I, uh, this is going to sound weird, but, Shunsui brought me some flowers and said that they were from you. He wrote a nice little apology on there for you, too. I mean, I know he did it, but Yoruichi has been telling me that you're really nice and all, and I think that you would be too. I mean, I don't know why you were in a bad mood earlier, but I figured, you know, if you were okay with it, that maybe we could start over or something. I mean, I could cook for you again. I swear I'll try harder to make it better!" Ren ranted, becoming very flustered at the end. If Shinji hadn't have been paying really close attention to what she was saying, he wouldn't have been able to understand her.

"I'm sorry!" Shinji exclaimed, getting out of his chair and bowing as much as he could. His face was burning red and he had a slight nosebleed, but he was not going to let her get away again. "I didn't mean to be so rude! Your cooking was fantastic, the best I've ever tasted! If you could find it in you to forgive me, I'd love to start over!"

There was nothing but silence. Shinji was afraid that she had run out on him, and his heart dropped. He was sad, but he couldn't blame her. He had been a real ass, and he didn't deserve her because of it. As he rose back up, he let out a long sigh, only to hold his breath as he felt a pair of warm, soft lips connect with his cheek.

"Great! Come over to Yoruichi's office for dinner then!" Ren told him, practically skipping towards the door.

"Don't be late!" she called back, shutting the door behind her. As soon as the door shut, blood poured out of Shinji's nose, and his face got even redder. Those were the most wonderful pair of lips that he had ever felt, and he couldn't wait to feel them again.

* * *

><p>"You're back quick. Where were you?" Yoruichi asked as soon as Ren returned to the office.<p>

"Nowhere, really. I hope you don't mind that I invited someone over for dinner," Ren told her, finally regaining her nerve.

"Oh? Who is it?" Yoruichi asked, hoping that it was a certain captain.

"I-it's Shinji," Ren said, so quickly that Yoruichi barely caught it.

"Oh, really? You sly dog," Yoruichi commented. Ren slightly flushed at her statement.

"Well, he did tell me that he actually liked my cooking, so…But what if he doesn't show!" Ren panicked. She would be so crushed and humiliated if he didn't show, and she wasn't sure if she could deal with it.

"Oh, I'll make sure he shows," Yoruichi muttered. "You start cooking, I'll be back in a little bit." Yoruichi had a plan, and the name of this particular plan just so happened to be Mashiro Kuna.

* * *

><p>He knew it was going to be a disaster, but he knocked anyways. Shinji refused to stand her up, but maybe she would understand if he had to leave early or something. If it was just him, it would have been perfect, but that wasn't the case. He had three of the worst people with him, and he could not shake them.<p>

Mashiro had barged into his office not so long after Ren left, and she demanded that he introduce her to Ren. He told her no at first, but after about ten minutes of continuous whining, he had to concede. Once she finally got him to consent, she decided to bring a friend, so she went and got Shinji's most favorite person in the world- Hiyori. Hiyori didn't really care to meet the lieutenant, but she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to make Shinji miserable. After a while, Kensei stormed into Shinji's office, not only looking for his lieutenant, but also wanting to yell at Shinji for being interested in that thief again. And of course, Mashiro just had to tell him where they were going. And of course, Kensei decided to go along so he could give that criminal a piece of his mind.

So, in the least to say, Shinji did not expect this dinner to go well. He would have been fine if it was just Mashiro, but once Hiyori joined in, he knew he was doomed. Kensei just sweetened the deal, almost guaranteeing that Ren would never speak to him again. Maybe Yoruichi could help him out, but he doubted it at this point, especially with the two hot-heads that were with him.

"Come in, come in!~"Yoruichi sang, ushering the party of four inside. Again, she already had a table and some mats set up, and a pot of tea was already prepared for them.

"Yoruichi, I'm not here to mess around. I want to see that thief so I can tell her just what I think of her and her pickpocketing," Kensei stated, making his intentions clear.

"Ah, well at least do it after you eat. No need for the food to go to waste." Everyone looked up to see Ren walking out with several plates of food balanced on her arms, and she was carefully making her way to the table.

"You listen here, you-"Kensei's rant was cut off when Ren dead-legged him, forcing him to kneel down on one of the mats.

"Just relax, Kensei! My Ren here is a great cook!" Yoruichi told him, shoving a bit of a rice and vegetable mixture in his mouth. He tried to object, but as soon as the flavors hit his tongue, he froze.

"Good, eh?" Yoruichi teased. Kensei didn't say a word; he just scoffed and looked off to his side, but he didn't say anything else. Shinji sighed in relief: one down, one to go.

"So, you're the 'Queen of Thieves', eh?" Hiyori bantered.

"Yep," Ren replied, taking a seat beside Shinji, and tossing Hiyori a money bag.

"Wh-what?! You didn't!" Hiyori raved, feeling around her pockets. Kensei started to do the same.

"I did, and just yours, too," Ren told her. "I mean, I had to prove a point." Shinji laughed at Hiyori's rage, but as soon as he did so, it was turned on him.

"What are you laughing at, baldy?!" she shouted. She was about to hit him, but Ren quickly shoved some food in her mouth, stopping her in her tracks.

"Hurt him later, Hiyori. It's time to eat now," Yoruichi reprimanded her. Hiyori made no more arguments, content with shoveling hoards of food down her throat instead.

"Glad you could make it," Ren said, looking beside of her at Shinji and giving him a small smile.

"I wouldn't have missed it," he stated, looking away from her, trying to hide his face so she wouldn't see his blush. No matter how small it may have been, her smile put him in a state of pure joy.

"Hey, Mashiro. You decided to come, too?" Ren asked.

"Yep!" Mashiro cheered.

"I thought you said you wanted to meet her?" Shinji pondered. It sounded as if the two had already been acquainted with each other.

"I lied!" Mashiro announced, happily munching on some sushi. Kensei would have yelled at her, but he was too busy engulfing food himself, and he didn't intend to stop any time soon.

* * *

><p>"See? You ended up showing me around anyways," Ren stated. Dinner had long been over, and Yoruichi decided to personally herd everyone but Shinji and Ren out herself. It was quiet between the two at first, and they wouldn't even look at each other, but soon enough, Ren broke the ice first, asking Shinji what some of his duties were as captain. Their conversation took off from there, and soon enough, Shinji brought up the courage to ask Ren of she wanted to take a walk with him. He almost jumped for joy when she agreed.<p>

"Well, I need to make sure that you know where you're going, Ren-chan. I wouldn't want you to get lost now, would I?" Shinji replied. He wasn't showing her around the Divisions at all, really. No, he had decided to take her to this little lake that he had found, which was somewhere outside the Thirteenth Division.

"I'm sure you could find me if I did get lost," Ren giggled, and beauty of that small laugh alone was enough to stun him and make him stumble over a rock that was in his way.

"Are you okay?" Ren hurriedly asked, worried that something serious was wrong with him.

"I'm fine!" Shinji assured her. He was more than fine, to be honest, but he wouldn't tell her that quite yet.

"Wow, that's so gorgeous," Ren breathed. It was a full moon that night, and the reflection of the moon off of the lake was so bright and clear that it almost took Ren's breath away.

"It's not the only thing," Shinji thought. He didn't want to move in on her too fast, though, so he decided to save that compliment for later. He had gotten his second chance, and he was not going to waste it.

"So, how's your first day been?" Shinji asked her.

"Well, it's been eventful, that's for sure. I can't complain, though. It's been interesting, although it was pretty strange for my first day. I got to meet a lot of people, though," Ren told him.

"Anyone in particular stick out?"

"Well, this one guy was kind of a jerk, but I guess he sort of redeemed himself." Shinji couldn't help but laugh at himself with that one. He had no idea what had gotten into him earlier, but he was glad that he got out of it. Dinner had played out a lot better than lunch, and he was hoping that he actually had a chance with her now.

"Thanks for taking me out here, by the way. It's really nice."

"Ah, I like to come out here to clear my head sometimes."

"I can see why. It's so quiet, and I bet not a lot of people know where it is."

"Nope."

"I guess we'll keep it as our little secret then."

"Oh, we're making secrets already?" Shinji felt confident enough to tease her a little, but nothing more than that.

"I guess so. Oh, whatever will they say about the brave and honest captain conniving with the thief?" Ren was able to play at this game, too, it seemed.

"To hell with what they say. Until they meet you and try your cooking, they don't know anything." Shinji was thrilled; he had gotten another laugh out of her.

"But really, Shinji, thank you. You've made this first day memorable for me."

"Ah, it's the least I could do, with you giving me a second chance and all."

"Let's just not go for round three, alright?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four- Gifts

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Yoruichi?"

"I'm bored."

"No shit?"

"Nope."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Find me something interesting to do!"

"Quit whining! You're a grown ass woman! You can find something to do on your own!"

"No, I can't!"

"You haven't even tried to move in the past three hours! You have made no attempt to find something to do!"

"Sure I have!"

"Alright, how?"

"I've tried thinking about something to do…"

"'Tried' thinking? You have had three hours, Yoruichi."

"That is not the point! What are you going to do?"

"I'm not telling you!"

"Why not?!'

"Because, you'll just invite yourself along, and you can't do that this time!"  
>"I swear I won't! I just want an idea of something to do!" This banter was starting to annoy Ren. She couldn't really blame Yoruichi, though; there really was nothing to do today. There hadn't been any Hollow attacks in their area, and the newbies had a day off from training. On the other hand, Ren didn't really want to tell Yoruichi where she was going. She wanted her privacy today, or rather needed it for once.<p>

"Why don't you go torment that Kuchiki kid?" Ren suggested.

"That sounds like a plan, but why are you avoiding my question?" Yoruichi prodded.

"What question?" Ren countered.

"Where are you going?" Yoruichi repeated.

"When?" Ren asked.

"After we leave in about thirty minutes."

"Leave where?"

"Work."

"Where's work?"

"Damn it, Ren! I swear if you don't tell me, I will follow you until I find out!"

"I could shake you."

"Come on, Ren!"

"If I tell you, you'll follow me. If I don't tell you, you'll follow me. Where am I supposed to win in that?"

"I swear, as your captain, I will not follow you."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"Ren! Please!"

"You are so nosy!"

"I know! I can't help it! Tell me!" Ren couldn't take it anymore. She hoped that she wouldn't regret it, but at this point, she didn't care.

"Me and Shinji are going out!" she conceded.

"No shit? I figured that. Why so secretive this time?" Yoruichi asked.

"He said to try to avoid stragglers. He wants us to actually have time with each other **without** anyone else around," Ren told her. It had been a year since Ren joined the Gotei 13, and almost every night since she and Shinji had had their little reconciliation, they had tried to meet up after work to spend time with each other. The problem was that every night, someone had just so happened to come across them, and they also decided not to leave the pair alone. This made the alone time that Ren and Shinji desired nearly impossible to attain.

"So, are you two, you know, together?" Yoruichi pondered.

"I-I don't know," Ren answered.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean, we've never been able to talk about it. Someone's always been around us, so we haven't been able to talk about it."

"Really? Well, I'll do you a favor. I'll make sure that nobody bothers you tonight."

"Would you really do that, Yoruichi?" Ren looked so hopeful, and Yoruichi couldn't bear to deny her anything.

"Why not? It'd give me something to do."

"Thank you, Yoruichi. I suppose that I might have to owe you now."

* * *

><p>"I'll think about holding it against you later. For now, I believe you have a certain long-haired captain to go meet. But first Ren, how about I give you some advice?"<p>

Shinji's day was just about as eventful as Ren and Yoruichi's. Not a damn thing had happened, and for the life of him, he couldn't think of anything to do. Plus, his anticipation to see Ren after work made time go by all the slower. He wouldn't complain, though, not as long as he got to see her.

He had to admit, she had really grown on him in the past year. Not that he thought she wouldn't, but he didn't think he would be this attached to her. His day felt incomplete if he didn't get to see her, and he was absolutely miserable until he was able to see her, even if it was only for a moment. He had thought that he might be getting too attached, but he sort of just said to hell with that idea and went with it.

"Captain?"

"What, Aizen?"

"You've been staring at the same piece of paper for the past five minutes."

"So? It's interesting.

"It's blank."

"Bullshit."

"No, it's really blank, Captain."

"Is it?" Shinji muttered, looking down at the paper that he was holding. True to Aizen's word, it was blank.

"Captain?" Aizen continued.

"Just call it a day, Aizen," Shinji told him, throwing the paper away and laying his head on the desk.

"Alright, if you say so, Captain."

"Yes, I say so, Aizen," Shinji mumbled sarcastically as soon as Aizen shut the door behind him. He waited for a few moments, but his frustrations were getting the better of him. He couldn't hold it in any longer, so he just threw his arms in the air and tilted his head back to let out a loud grumble, one that he had been holding in all day.

"Ahhhh! I want to see Ren!"

"Well, now you see me!"

Shinji almost had a heart attack. He hadn't felt any spiritual pressure what-so-ever around him, which was why he was finally able to let his frustration vocalize itself, when seemingly, out of thin air, came Ren. One moment he was shouting, and then the next thing he knew, Ren was falling out of the ceiling and onto his lap. It scared the hell out of him, although he did appreciate the fact that she was sitting on his lap.

"Magic, eh?" Ren teased. The look on Shinji's face went from 'I-just-got-shot' to content in a split second. Just seeing the smile on her face made his day go from awful to perfect, and he couldn't think of any other place that he'd rather be.

"Yeah, I'll say," Shinji agreed, staring into the deep burnt orange pools that were Ren's eyes. She stared right back into his, with such a gentle look, that it made him get lost even deeper into her gaze. It was like the two were staring into each other's very souls, and they were very comfortable with what they were seeing. Ren took a small lock of Shinji's hair and started to twirl it gently in her fingers.

"So, no stragglers today, huh?" Ren began.

"Nope, not today. Just you and me," Shinji agreed.

"Privacy, hm? I'm not sure I know the meaning of the word," Ren joked.

"Ah, it might make things weird, won't it?" Shinji played, rubbing a hand down Ren's upper arm.

"I think I'm willing to take that chance, that is, if you are, Shinji." Goodness, he loved it when she said his name.

"Eh, I might be. It'd be something new, ya' know?"

"Something new, huh?" It was funny that he had mentioned that, because Ren had been thinking of trying something new all day. The thing was, she wasn't really sure how Shinji would react to it, which kind of scared her. But, it had been quite a boring day, and what was life without chances? Plus, according to Yoruichi's lovely advice, it was time for Ren to "grow a metaphorical pair" and step things up in this relationship, a.k.a. actually make it a legitimate relationship. No one was blind, not even Ren or Shinji: they knew where this pairing would end up. The question was, who would have the guts to make the first move?

"Hey, Shinji?" Ren called in a playful tone.

"Hm?" Shinji replied, mildly spacing out as he tugged at a strand of her orange-brown hair.

"Can I, try something?" Ren asked, not real sure how she could go about this.

"What do you mean? Why would I stop you from anything?" Shinji replied. He wasn't quite sure what she was asking, but he figured it wasn't anything too big.

"Well, you are involved, Shinji," Ren playfully warned him, moving slightly closer to him.

"Well, I trust ya', Ren, for what it's worth," Shinji assured her, still mesmerized by her hair.

"It's worth a lot more than you think," Ren mumbled, wiping her thumb across his cheek, so gently that he barely felt it.

"What-"Shinji couldn't finish his sentence, and it was because of such a wonderful reason, surprising, but wonderful.

He hardly realized that it had happened at first. She had been so quick and so gentle, that it took him a moment to process what was happening, and just who it was happening with. And even when he finally realized what was going on, his mind went blank. The thought had crossed his mind that she might not want to be with him in that way, that maybe he was chasing a hopeless dream, but here they were, and oh how the tables had turned. And what surprised him even more was that she was the one that made the first move!

Ren took a huge leap of faith. Yoruichi was right: it was time for her to grow a pair and get this show on the road. She couldn't ignore the way her feelings were developing for Shinji, and she couldn't stop them: they were way too strong, and they made her way too happy, so it would have been foolish for her to try to get rid of them. So, without thinking about her fears or about the possibly disastrous outcomes, Ren finally acted on her feelings, and she could never have imagined how amazing the outcome would be.

Shinji was in a positively blissful daze. Nothing could compare to the sweet, gentle softness of Ren's lips. If he wasn't smitten with her before, he sure as hell was now. Shinji was slow to respond at first, that is, until he finally got a grasp on what was happening. When the realization hit, a wave of joy washed over him, and he responded to Ren's kiss with an eager passion. He reached up and tangled one of his hands in her hair, while he used his other arm to wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to him in a tight, amorous embrace. He never wanted to let her go and as he moved his lips in ardent unison with hers, it looked like he wasn't about to any time soon.

Ren was a little worried at first. When she first pressed her lips against Shinji's, and he didn't respond, she thought it would be the end of her. She was afraid that her leap of faith had all been for naught, and that she had been pursuing a fool's dream, but as soon as his arm wrapped around her and he started to return her kiss, relief flooded through her. She was taken off guard by how enthusiastic he was, but she couldn't complain. She had never felt so safe before in her entire life, and she would have been perfectly content to just stay there in his arms for the rest of eternity. She tried to pull away for a moment so she could catch her breath, but Shinji pulled her right back in, and this time, it was her that was in the blissful daze. The eagerness, the passion, the emotion in Shinji's kiss showed Ren just what she needed in her life, and it was Shinji; there was no denying it now. She had thought that she was enamored with him before, but now, she couldn't deny the love that was rooting its way into her heart for him.

When the two were finally able to pull away from each other, everything was quiet except for their heavy breathing. With her eyes still closed, Ren leaned forward until her forehead was against Shinji's. His arm was still tightly around her, and she had twisted both of her hands into his haori at some point during their passionate escapade. She slowly untangled her hands, and she began to smooth the wrinkles that she had made in his haori when she finally opened her eyes. There was no awkwardness between them when they locked eyes together, only affection, and a deep, unbreakable love.

"I told you that you were involved," Ren breathed, a smile etching itself across her face.

"Yep," Shinji relied. He was at a loss for words, really, still trying to wrap his mind around what they just did.

"That wasn't too soon or out of line, was it?" Ren asked, panicked by his shallow reply and the lost expression on his face.

"What? Hell no! We should have done that sooner!" Shinji assured her.

"Oh, good. I was worried for a minute there."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why were you worried?"

"I-It's nothing, really."

"Oh, come on, Ren. Don't just say something and then play it off like you didn't."

"It's silly, Shinji. You don't want to hear it."

"If something's bothering you, Ren, I want to hear about it."

"Nothing's bothering me, I mean, I was just worried you wouldn't enjoy it. But, I'm really glad that you did enjoy it, because, uh, well, I don't know, uh, you know."

"I think I do know, actually."

"Do you?"

"Well, I either do, or I'm about to make an idiot out of myself."

"That wouldn't surprise me, actually."

"You are not helping, Ren."

"Please, I'm adorable and you know it."

"As I was saying, Ren, I figure ya' probably feel the same way I do: I really care about you, Ren. I know that it's only been a year, and that we haven't exactly had much alone time together because no one wants to leave us the hell alone, but what can I say? Seeing you is the highlight of my day. I'd go through a horde of Menos Grande just to catch a glimpse of you, Ren, and I think you feel the same way, or at least I hope you do."

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Captain Hirako."

"You're such a tease, Lieutenant." Shinji leaned forward and quickly gave Ren another quick kiss, which in his mind was the perfect finisher to his explanation.

"So, does this mean we're together now?" Ren playfully asked.

"I don't know, you tell me."

"Hey, don't pull that shit now. I asked you first, Shinji."

"Well, do you wanna?"

"Of course I wanna, dumbass. I wouldn't have kissed you if I didn't."

"See? You answered your own question."

"No, I didn't. Just because I wanna don't mean you wanna. Jeez, I'm starting to talk like you already."

"Is that a bad thing, Ren?"

"It could be."

"Thanks."

"So, do you wanna?"

"Wanna what?"

"I swear, Shinji, I will slaughter you in your sleep."

"Damn, I thought that would work."

"Please: I'm a master of deflecting conversation. That would never work on me."

"Should've known. You're damn straight I wanna, Ren."

"Really?"

"I wouldn't lie to ya, Ren."

"Ah, I should've figured that, eh?" This time, Ren was the one to lean down and give Shinji the small peck on the lips.

"I'll never get tired of that, you know," Shinji commented.

"Consider it a small gift from me," Ren teased.

"Speaking of gifts, Ren-chan, I got you something," Shinji began.

"Really? Why'd you go and do that?" Ren asked.

"Well, I had planned to make the first move and give you something, but, somebody just had to go and jump the gun and make the first move before I could, so there's really no need for the gift now," Shinji explained.

"Well, sorry to burst your bubble there, Captain Hirako," Ren joked. "Oh, and is this the gift you're talking about?" Ren had pulled out a rectangular black box, much to Shinji' surprise, and she held it out in front of her.

"How the hell did you-"

"Queen of thieves, Shinji, queen of thieves."

"Yeah, yeah, just open the damn thing, Ren."

"Thought you'd never ask." Ren quickly flipped the lid of the box open and her eyes went wide when she saw what was in it. It was simple, yet it was so beautiful to her. It was burnt orange crystal pendant that matched her eyes perfectly, and it was held by a solid black choker. It wasn't anything over the top, but it was perfect for her.

"Oh, Shinji, you know me too well," Ren commented, running her finger down the pendant.

"You like it?" Shinji asked her.

"Love it," Ren told him.

"Want me to put it on you?"

"Of course." Ren quickly flipped around in Shinji's lap so he could have better access to the back of her neck, and as she held her hair up, she looked back and gave him a smile.

"Have at it, Captain," Ren told him.

"I'll get ya for that teasin' one day, Ren," Shinji warned her.

"Yeah, yeah, just not today," Ren added. Shinji shook his head, but he gently took the necklace out of its box, and (after throwing the box aside in a very unceremonious fashion) tied it around Ren's neck. It was a little snug, but it wasn't too tight for her.

"Thank you, Shinji," Ren said, turning back around in Shinji's lap.

"I do what I can," Shinji replied.

"You hungry?" Ren asked.

"Starving," Shinji agreed.

"Well, I'll go make us something, Captain Hirako," Ren offered.

"I guess it'd be rude of me if I didn't escort you then, wouldn't it?" Shinji said, starting to stand up after Ren finally climbed out of his lap, but she quickly pushed him back down.

"Nuh-uh, Captain. You, sir, have been slacking today. I see a blank form on your desk that has to be turned in tomorrow morning, so you just hop to that and you can come over when you have it finished," Ren ordered.

"But, Ren," Shinji started.

"No 'buts' Shinji, only writing," Ren warned him. She quickly leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

"There: a little incentive so you can work faster, Shinji."

"I'll be done in no time."

"I'm sure you will. I'll see you in a bit, Shinji." And with that, Ren finally left Shinji's office. Before Shinji could even start on the form, he had to sit back and just absorb the moment. He was finally together with Ren: he could not have been happier at that moment, although, he could have easily done without that damn form. But, Ren would have had his head if he didn't do it, plus Aizen would have annoyed him about it all day, as well, so he quickly started filling the piece of paper out. The sooner he got it done, the sooner he could have a nice dinner with Ren.

* * *

><p>Ren was practically skipping her way back to Second Division. With her new pendant bouncing about her neck, Ren was almost glowing. She couldn't wait to tell Yoruichi that she had taken her advice, but that would have to wait, because for now, Ren was more concerned with getting back so she could make Shinji one of the best dinners that he had ever had.<p>

"Heading home, Ren?" Ren quickly turned around, only to come face-to-face with Shinji's lieutenant, Sousuke Aizen.

"Yeah, it's starting to get late, so, you know," Ren told him. "You heading that way, too?"

"Not quite yet. I've been showing a new officer around," Aizen told her, giving a nod to the officer standing behind him. Ren had heard that Fifth Division had received a new officer recently (she hadn't heard that from Shinji, of course; she doubted that he even knew that he had a new officer), and that this particular officer had graduated from the academy early, but she never would have guessed that he was so young!

"Ah, you must be Ichimaru-san. Nice to finally meet you!" Ren greeted.

"Hi there, Ren-chan," Gin replied, and that was it. He didn't say another word; he just kept that same creepy, wide smile on his face. It didn't bother Ren, though; she had met people that were way stranger in District 80.

"At least you're showing him around," Ren commented.

"Yes, I don't think that Captain Hirako knows that he's here," Aizen agreed.

"It wouldn't surprise me in the least. Anywho, I'll catch you later. Good luck with Shinji, both of you: I'm sure you'll need it," Ren called, beginning to walk away from them.

"Watch yourself, Ren. You never know who might be lurking out there," she heard Aizen call. If it creped her out, she didn't show it, at least not until she was far away from him and back in her own division. Once she reached her division, she couldn't help the shiver that went up her spine. Just the way that he said that was enough to make her want to crawl under a rock and stay there for the next century.

_"Ren-chan."_ She knew that voice all too well. She had heard it for far too long not to recognize it.

_"He is not one to be trusted_," another voice warned. Both of these voices couldn't be heard by anyone else; they were the voices of the dual spirits of her zanpakutō, Hitokiri, the Human Slayer. The voice that had first called her name was the clear, light voice of woman, and even though it may have sounded innocent, that voice held the music of death in it; it belonged to Kiri, her right blade. The second voice was that of a man, and it was much more threatening, so threatening that it could make the bravest of souls quiver; it was the voice of Hito, her left blade.

_**(AN: Are those names uncreative? I mean, they sounded good to me, but zanpakutō names are not exactly my forte…)**_

"I know, you two, I know. I feel it, too, but there isn't really much I can do now," Ren told them.

_"Just be wary, Ren. I would hate to see that beautiful face of yours scarred because of some psychopath," _Kiri warned.

_"Yes, and I would hate to die with you because of some psychopath, so watch your back,"_ Hito agreed.

"Thanks for the confidence guys. You make my day so much brighter," Ren muttered sarcastically. But, even though they weren't exactly nice about it, she understood her zanpakutō's point: be careful around Aizen. She trusted her zanpakutō with her life, and she also trusted her own instincts, and right now, her instincts were screaming at her that danger was close by.

_**Author's Note: I am so sorry! I feel awful for making you guys wait so long for this! I don't have internet at my house right now, so I'm having to go to a friend's house to use it whenever I can, which isn't very often. I cannot apologize enough for this long ass wait! Thank you guys for staying loyal to the story: I will try my best to get the next one out sooner! In my defense, though, I did have mild writer's block for a while: I knew what I wanted to write, but I didn't know how to write it, if that makes any sense. But, I finally got it, and I threw in a few gifties for you guys! There's a bit of Shinji/Ren fluff in there, plus Gin appears (for all you Gin fans out there- I love him, too, don't worry!), Aizen's creeping around, and the name of Ren's zanpakutō is finally revealed! Maybe all of that will make the wait worth it! Anyways, a special thanks to Soren Tamazki, alexma, Snowy12345679, Oowwll, Naruhinalov3, CeeGilbert8987, Buzooka Zooka, and CirceanPoison for the follows, favorites, and reviews! Oh, and as to who Ren's brother is, I think that it's pretty obvious, but I tried not to make it too painfully obvious for you guys. He doesn't really play a part in the story until later, though, so I won't come out and say who he is just yet. Whew, this is one long author's note! But, I feel like I abandoned you guys, so, I kind of owe an explanation to you. Anyways, enjoy, leave me feedback and all that good jazz! Thanks for reading! Longest chapter yet, I do believe!**_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five-Newbies

"I just can't do it anymore!"

Ren was having serious thoughts about turning around and walking back to the Fifth Division. Judging by Yoruichi's yell of frustration, she was obviously having an issue, and that was something that Ren wanted no part of. But, of course, being the loyal and dutiful lieutenant that she was, Ren decided to toughen up and see just what the problem was. She could only hope that she wouldn't regret it later.

"Yoruichi, are you alright?" Ren asked as she poked her head around the door. Yoruichi was at her desk, with her head flat against the top of it.

"No, no I'm not, Ren," Yoruichi whined. Ren took a deep breath to prepare herself.

"What's the problem?" she asked, bracing herself.

"They just aren't responding!" Yoruichi told her, finally raising her head off of her desk.

"You're going to have to elaborate, Captain," Ren told her.

"The newbies! They aren't responding to my training!" Yoruichi explained.

"Oh…That's it?" The question caused Yoruichi to look at Ren incredulously.

"Yeah…Why?"

"I thought it was serious, that's all."

"This is serious, Ren! What kind of Captain am I if I can't even train my own squad members!?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Yoruichi. They probably just need some time to get used to your training methods."

"They've had time, Ren! It's not going to be fine! They'll never get it!"

Ren took yet another deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had no idea what was wrong with the new recruits, but she knew that there was no way in hell that she was going to listen to this all day.

"Sure they will. You know, why don't you just let me have a try with them?" Ren felt like she was selling her soul as she made that offer.

"Would you really do that, Ren?" Yoruichi's eyes looked so hopeful and innocent, and Ren just couldn't find in it herself to deny her, even though she knew that that innocent and hopeful look was complete bullshit.

"Yeah, yeah, why not?"

"Great! They should all be making their way to the training field right now! Let's go!"

"What have I gotten myself into?" Ren muttered.

* * *

><p>"Goodness, Yoruichi, you've already scared the piss out of them," Ren commented. She was standing in front of the line of new recruits, and they were all practically shaking in their boots and looking at Ren as if she were about to murder them all in cold blood.<p>

"So?" Yoruichi replied.

"So? Don't you think you might have gone a little too far, been a tad bit too forceful?" Ren told her.

"No, not at all," Yoruichi commented, glaring over at the recruits and startling them.

"Of course you would think that," Ren muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose yet again. She was doing that a lot today, and she figured she probably wouldn't be stopping any time soon.

"Yoruichi, why don't you go over there and give us some space," Ren suggested, pointing off into the distance.

"All the way over there? And do what?" Yoruichi practically whined.

"And watch! What else?"

"But I-"

"No buts! Go!"

"Fine." With a final huff, Yoruichi finally Shunpo'd away from them, giving Ren the chance that she wanted to talk to the recruits.

"So, what is it exactly that you are not getting?" she asked them, looking over to the spot where Yoruichi had gone, where she was now crossing her arms and quite literally sulking. Ren could only shake her head.

"C-Combat Shunpo," one of the men answered.

"Elaborate for me, please," Ren continued.

"You don't know? Didn't you go through this training, too?" one of the other women asked, and she was somewhere on the verge between confusion and incredulous anger.

"Nope," Ren answered.

"Then how the hell are you our lieutenant?!"

"Because I am just that damn good, sweetheart. And did I tell you to yell?"

"N-No, sir."

"Alright then. Now, would someone please elaborate this training exercise to me?" Ren repeated.

"Lieutenant Hi-err, Ren, um, this is the exercise where Captain Shihōin Shunpo's at us and has us try to dodge or deflect her attacks," a young girl finally answered.

"And I assume by all of your bruises that this has not gone well," Ren commented. "So, you all know how to Shunpo, right?"

"Yes, sir!" they all answered in unison.

"Again with the sir?" Ren wondered.

"Okay, then I guess we'll try something a little different," Ren started. That comment in and of itself was enough to make all of the recruits' eyes shoot open and for their shaking to start again.

"Don't look so scared, jeez. We're just going to flip roles," Ren assured them.

"Flip roles?" one of them asked.

"Yes, flip roles. Just for a little bit, though. I'm going to be you guys, and you guys will be Yoruichi," Ren explained.

"You mean, we'll attack you?"

"Precisely. That way, you'll be able to see how I do it and maybe you'll be able to mimic me when we switch roles again," Ren answered, cracking her neck to start getting ready for the exercise.

"But, Lieutenant, we-"

"Don't worry about it. I can handle it. Yoruichi didn't go all the way to District 80 to get me for nothing. Now, shall we begin?"

The recruits just looked at each other for a moment, as if they were daring one another to go first. Finally, the woman with an attitude decided she would be the one. At first, she Shunpo'd around Ren, zigzagging around her and trying to confuse her, when finally she came in for a kick. Everyone thought that she had Ren, especially since Ren hadn't even moved her eyes to follow her the whole time that she Shunpo'd, but as soon as she was about to make contact, Ren brought up her forearm to deflect the kick.

"How? You aren't even looking at me!" the woman asked, astonished.

"I have many other senses besides my sight, recruit, and so do you," Ren told her, wrapping her arm around the recruits leg and throwing her back to the others.

The rest of the recruits looked at each other and nodded in unison, all of them silently agreeing on a new strategy to use in this exercise. They had all decided to charge Ren at once, some trying to kick her, others trying to punch her, and one even trying to grab her and trap her so she couldn't dodge their attacks. But, moving as if she were as light as the wind itself, Ren showed them just why she was their lieutenant.

One of the recruits tried to kick Ren in the head, and she easily ducked under his leg and then quickly shoved her palm into his knee to throw him off balance. When one of the other men tried to grab her, she quickly span behind him, making him take a punch to the face that had been meant for her, and as soon as she was behind the man, one of the women tried to kick her again, and this time, Ren Shunpo'd out of the way, making the man that had tried to grab her take yet another hit that was meant for her.

"Is that it?" Ren challenged. The recruits did not falter, and as soon as the words left her mouth, they were all charging her again, and this time, they all tried to hit her at once. With a slight smirk, Ren crouched down to the ground, right at the perfect level to dodge the lowest hitter. And of course, the recruits all hit each other, although one was able to Shunpo out of the way. It was actually the young girl that had told Ren what the exercise was in the first place.

"You! Very good; you catch on quickly. And for the rest of you, I like your spirit, but you need to be on your toes a little more, alright? Now, I'm going to take Yoruichi's role, too, so I won't just be dodging and deflecting: I'll also be targeting a few of you. Try not to fall behind, alright?" Ren warned them. For some reason, Ren's method seemed to motivate the recruits, and instead of fearing being hit by her or by each other, they were determined to learn the method behind her movements.

* * *

><p>Shinji was on his way to Second Division; he was taking some paper work over there to give to Ren, a duty which he had relieved Aizen of very quickly, for obvious reasons. As he was making the journey to Yoruichi's office, he happened to notice some commotion by the training fields, and he wasn't going to stop, that is, until he saw a flash of orange go by, and then he suddenly became interested. When he got closer to the fields, he noticed Yoruichi not too far away, and with her were Jūshirō and Shunsui.<p>

"Ah, Shinji! I was wondering when you'd show up!" Shunsui called.

"What's going on over there?" Shinji asked when he reached them.

"Ren-chan decided to take a stab at training Yoruichi's new recruits," Jūshirō told him.

"Because someone was apparently having issues!~" Shunsui sang, and Yoruichi visibly shrank in the spot where she was sitting.

"Well, if ya' wouldn't try to basically kill 'em, Yoruichi, ya' might not have that problem," Shinji told her.

"Ya' might have the problem of my foot up yer ass if ya' don't shut up," Yoruichi warned him.

"Pfft, let's not pretend like you aren't just trying to get Ren to do this for you from now on, Yoruichi," Shinji commented.

"Now why would I do that, Captain Hirako?" Yoruichi asked, rolling her eyes at him. Shunsui and Jūshirō both snickered at that.

"'Cuz yer lazy," Shinji stated, in a very 'as-a-matter-of-fact' tone.

"Shinji," Yoruichi began.

"Yes?" he replied.

"My foot is coming real close, real close, to your ass, and I'm sure that Ren will back me up on this," Yoruichi warned him.

"She would not!" Shinji shouted, skeptically.

"She would, too. She knows how much of a pain you can be," Yoruichi told him.

"You are an evil woman," Shinji muttered.

"It's part of my charm!" Yoruichi happily conceded.

At that time, Shinji was finally able to pinpoint Ren in the crowd of Shunpo'ing recruits. Her face was calm and her expression was unconcerned, but there was no telling how long they had been out there training in the heat, so she was sweating just a little bit, but it wasn't in an unattractive masculine way. No, it was in a way that Shinji found to be quite attractive. Her lips were barely parted so she could draw in just a little bit of extra air. He may have been imagining it, but he could have sworn that there was a slight blush across her cheeks, and her chest was just barely starting to heave and Shinji couldn't help but stare and get caught in its up and down rhythm. And just as he was about to try to stop ogling her, a small bead of sweat rolled its way down her neck, over her collarbone, and straight into her glorious cleavage. There was no way that Shinji could have stopped the small trickle of blood that came out of his nose.

"Yoruichi, I'm going straight to hell when I die," Shinji commented.

"Me, too," she agreed. Shinji quickly swung his head over to look at her, and she obviously staring at the same thing he was. Blood started gushing out of his nose, and he held his hand to nose to try to stop some of it.

"Hehe, good one, Yoruichi," Shunsui commented. Shinji looked over at him, and his nose was bleeding, too, though not nearly as bad as Shinji's. Jūshirō was just shaking his head at all of them.

* * *

><p>"How…How do you do it?"<p>

All of the recruits were tired and breathless, and Ren wasn't too far from it herself. Normally, she wouldn't be bothered by the strenuous activity, but it was just so damn hot that day. She was also feeling very antsy because she could practically feel eyes on her, but she wasn't sure where they were from.

"Several ways, actually," Ren breathed.

"Elaborate, please," one of the men laughed.

"Ha-ha. I might just do that," Ren began. "Sight is great and all, but as the human beings that we are, we depend on it way too much. Sometimes, when your eyes just can't keep up, you have to use your other senses. Let me elaborate on this, as well. Whenever one of you tried to kick me in the head, I could hear and feel the wind change by my ear, so I knew to dodge an attack to my head. Whenever you tried to grab me or punch or kick the rest of my body, I let my spiritual pressure and each of yours do the work. So, whenever you were aiming for my body or my head even, I focused enough so I could feel our spiritual pressures begin to collide right before they actually did. That's the key to Shunpo Combat: focus. You have to be attentive enough to pay attention to all of your senses, especially your sense of feeling with your spiritual pressure, all while trying to be fast enough to hit your opponent before they can feel you. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" the recruits shouted.

"Alright, then you are dismissed, or whatever she says when you're done," Ren told them. Without another word, the recruits Shunpo'd away, and Ren was finally able to rejoin her dearest Captain Shihōin, who seemed to have drawn some companions to herself.

"Captains," Ren greeted.

"Hey, Ren," Shinji replied. Ren couldn't help but snort when she saw the tissues stuffed in his nose. She almost couldn't keep her laughter in when she saw that Shunsui had some, too.

"Yoruichi causing you trouble?" Ren joked.

"I would never! By the way, Ren, you seem to be a natural at this," Yoruichi commented.

"No, Yoruichi. The answer is no," Ren told her.

"But I didn't even say anything!" Yoruichi whined.

"No, but I know you, and the answer is no; I will not take over training for you from now on. I may do a few sessions here and there, but I will not do all of them," Ren replied. Shunsui and Jūshirō both laughed at the disgruntled look on Yoruichi's face.

"You're mean," Yoruichi muttered.

"And you're any better?" Shinji countered, causing Yoruichi to huff.

"Now, now, Shinji, be nice. Is that paperwork you have there, by the way?" Ren asked him.

"Why yes, it is. Paperwork for Second Division, in fact," Shinji told her.

"I see Well, I'm sure Yoruichi would love to take that off of your hands, wouldn't you, Captain?" Ren replied. "Seeing as I did just train your recruits for you."

"Fine," Yoruichi huffed. Ren quickly took the paperwork from Shinji and shoved it into Yoruichi's hands.

"Well, it looks like I can clock out early then, huh?" Ren commented.

"Yeah, yeah, just go," Yoruichi grumbled, defeated at her own game.

"Great! See you later!" Ren called. Shinji didn't even have time to think before Ren grabbed him by the haori and Shunpo'd away from everyone else, dragging him along with her.

"Young love, eh?" Shunsui commented.

"Yeah, yeah, and it's a pain in my ass," Yoruichi added.

* * *

><p>"You know, I might actually have work to do," Shinji stated.<p>

"Pfft, like you'd actually do it instead of spending time with me," Ren commented.

"Hey, now, don't get a chip on your shoulder, Ren."

"I'm not: I just know you, that's all." After Shunpo'ing a good distance away, Ren finally stopped and let Shinji go. Now, as the sun was about to set, they were walking through the rest of the Divisions to get to their usual spot at the lake before the sun set.

"I would hope you know me by now. It's been what, half a century now?" Shinji commented.

"Something like that. Oh, look! It's Kisuke! Hi, Kisuke!" Ren called, startling the pale blond and stopping him in his tracks.

"R-Ren-chan? I didn't think I'd see you out here," Kisuke commented.

"What am I, invisible?" Shinji jeered.

"Oh, hello, Captain Hirako," Kisuke added.

"So, have you finally settled in to being captain, Kisuke?" Ren asked him.

"For the most part. It doesn't seem like I've been doing it for five years now," Kisuke admitted.

"No, it doesn't," Ren agreed.

"Well, time flies when you're having fun, right Ren?" Shinji commented, putting his hands on both of Ren's shoulders.

"So, have you two heard about the disappearances in Rukongai?" Kisuke asked.

"No, we haven't," Ren told him. "Are they centered anywhere?"

"Yes, mainly in the outer districts, but there hasn't been enough of them to really draw any attention. I only heard about them by chance. But, I guess we'll see how it goes. They may be nothing serious at all," Kisuke told her.

"Yeah, let's hope so," Ren agreed. "Well, we'll catch you later, Kisuke! Best of luck with Lieutenant Sarugaki!"

"Poor guy," Shinji commented.

"Why's that?" Ren asked him.

"Could you imagine working with Hiyori all day?"

"Shinji! Be nice! You know you love her!"

"No, just, no Ren. Why'd you even go there?"

"Because I can, that's why. And it is so funny to see that look of disgust on your face."

"Oh, how kind of you, Ren."

"I do what I can."

They made it to the lake just in time, right before the sun set. They sat down in their usual spot, and Ren leaned over so she could gently prop herself on Shinji's shoulder. Moments later, the sun started to set, and neither of them said a word as they enjoyed the beautiful sight together. Shinji reached down and softly took Ren's hand, holding in his own carefully, as if he thought it were fragile, although he knew that that was nearly opposite the truth.

"We haven't been able to do this in a while," Ren commented, turning Shinji's hand over in her own.

"We haven't. Remember what happened last time?" Shinji teased.

"How could I forget? I'm sure it will be engraved in my mind for the rest of eternity."

"It will be in mine. One of the best days of my life right there."

"Better be." As soon as Ren made that comment, she knew, in the bottom of her heart, that her zanpakutō were about to say some smart ass remarks.

_"I think I'm going to puke,"_ Hito choked.

_"I second that,"_ Kiri agreed.

_"Oh, then we can do it together! It'll be so romantic!"_ they both chimed.

"I hate you both right now," Ren thought.

_"We're the ones that have to unwillingly watch this cheesy shit, Ren," _Hito told her.

_"If you don't want our opinions, then tone it down a notch,"_ Kiri added.

"Oh, I'll tone it down," Ren grumbled in her thoughts.

"Zanpakutōs being assholes again?" Shinji asked.

"Oh, how could you tell?" Ren asked sarcastically.

"By that pissed off, disgruntled look on your face," Shinji told her. "Should we give them what they want?"

"Definitely," Ren agreed. Ren tilted her head up and Shinji rubbed his free hand against the side of her face, right before he leaned down and locked his lips with hers. For zanpakutōs' sakes, they made a slow kiss, taking their time and drawing it out as long as possible.

_"I hate you both right now," _Hito grumbled.

_"I might actually throw up now,"_ Kiri agreed.

"Oh yeah, I definitely won this round," Ren thought. Her zanpakutō were great and all, but they were also bloodthirsty assholes, and even though they did like Shinji at points, they positively abhorred his romance with Ren.

"Better?" Shinji breathed as they pulled apart.

"Just a little," Ren told him, giving him one more small peck on the lips.

"Well, I do what I can," Shinji told, with one of his best shit-eating grins.

"That you do, Captain Hirako, that you do."

_**Author's Note: I'm alive! I told you guys I didn't forget about you! It took a minute, but I finally got you guys the next chapter! And speaking of the new chapter, yes, I did put in a bit of a time skip, and there will be another one next chapter. I'm not trying to short you guys of some Ren and Shinji fluff, but bear with me for a moment. I'll have flash backs later on, so there's no need to panic. I also put in some minor hints as to what one of those flashbacks might be. Wonder what happened the last time they watched the sunset together? I would say me, too, but seeing as I'm writing this story…Anywho, it has been quite a while, so I have quite a few people to thank, so again, bear with me. Nikieboy, DeadlyVampire-DayDream Corp, Delsins, Die-Hard-Twi-Hard-13, Oswin Reid, jktaengoo, AgnetCoCo, d0nutl0ve, Emotionless Girl32, Bloody Rice Ball, xxRyuu-himexx, and 1827alouette6927, thank you all for all of the love, and to everyone else, thank you as well for reading my story. On a side note, I just posted a new story, too! Check out **__**Abandoned Scars/Love**__**, you know, after you leave a review for this one, or favorite it, or like it, I'm not picky…**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note: It's been a while since I did one of these at the beginning… Anywho, I bet you didn't think I'd get another one out this soon, did you?! In all seriousness, neither did I. And actually, I got you two! They were both supposed to be one chapter, but I figured it would be way too long as one, so I made it into two! And I was on a role with this one! I think these were my favorite chapters to write so far, although I'm not sure how you guys will react to the end. Anyways, enjoy Part 1 and Part 2! Follow, favorite, or review, you know that routine. Thank you to MarvelGeek13, DeadlyVampire-DayDream Corp, and MySweetCh**__**ibiAngel24 for all of the love!**_

Chapter Six-And It Just Keeps Rolling Downhill-Part 1

"The disappearances are picking up in the outer districts of Rukongai." That statement caught Ren's attention. She had been cleaning up after her dinner with Yoruichi and Kisuke, something that they had been trying to do more often since he had become captain, and she had been lost in her own thoughts for a while, but as soon as Kisuke uttered the word 'disappearances', she quickly became alert and attentive.

"You mean, the ones that started picking up about five years ago?" Ren asked him.

"Yes, the very ones. Why do you ask?" Kisuke wondered.

"Do you think it has something to do with the Thief Clans?" Yoruichi asked her.

"Maybe. I mean, the frequency and time span matches up, so," Ren told her.

"What do you mean? What would the Thief Clans have to do with the disappearances?" Kisuke asked.

"Well, whenever they're low on members, they've been known to abduct individuals with some hints of reiatsu, adults or children, and they'll do it subtly over a span of time," Ren told him.

"There's something strange about these disappearances, though," Kisuke began, "There weren't even traces of reiatsu left from the victims. It's like they vanished."

"Well, based in what I saw when I left, it wouldn't surprise me if they had techniques to do something like that now," Ren commented.

_"Those bastards would do something like that," _Hito grumbled.

_"They lost their most prized possession due to their own foolishness, and now all they can do is mimic it,"_ Kiri agreed.

"You mean, they were developing techniques like that? Why?" Kisuke asked.

"I don't-" Ren started, but Yoruichi was quick to cut her off.

"They were trying to copy Ren's abilities. They figured she would be leaving soon by the way she had dropped her training after her brother was exiled, so they were trying to duplicate her abilities," Yoruichi explained. Ren wasn't exactly mad that Yoruichi had shared that little detail, but she wasn't exactly happy that she did, either. Her past with the Thief Clans was something personal to her, and she had only ever told two people about it: Yoruichi and Shinji. She liked Kisuke and all, and she thought of him as one of her closest friends, but she would rather have told him herself, under better circumstances.

"Oh. Do you think they could actually have done that?" Kisuke asked, being the researcher that he was and trying to get all the information that he could about the Thief Clans, since they were an area of mystery for him as they were for everyone else.

"The particular abilities that they want to mimic are the ones that I obtained through my zanpakutō. I've never heard of someone being able to copy somebody else's zanpakutō powers, but they are quite persistent, so if anyone could do it, it would be them," Ren answered.

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are your zanpakutōs abilities?"

"You'll see, Kisuke, eventually. It's bound to happen," Ren stated.

"Pfft, I doubt it. You still haven't shown me the secrets behind your 'thief abilities'," Yoruichi mocked.

"Are you still pouting about that? It just hasn't come up, Yoruichi. Besides, I like surprising people," Ren countered.

"Hmph, whatever you say, Lieutenant," Yoruichi pouted.

"You are such a child sometimes, I swear," Ren muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head.

"So, anyways, why did you bring up the disappearances again?" Ren continued, ignoring the childish glare Yoruichi was giving her.

"The Captain-Commander sent a team out this morning to investigate. It was from Ninth Division, I believe, and I sent Hiyori out some time after them," Kisuke told them.

"I bet Kensei and Mashiro went then, which I'm sure is proper procedure, but hell, even after a century I still don't know all of that crap," Ren mused.

"I'd be worried if you did," Yoruichi added.

"Maybe this will all be nothing, maybe it'll be something big, but hopefully, it won't have anything to do with the Thief Clans, because that is a chapter of my life that I want to be closed forever," Ren conceded.

"Ah, it was a tough time for you, wasn't it?" Yoruichi puffed.

_"Trifling bastards," _Hito huffed.

_"Agreed,"_ Kiri conceded.

"You two do love me!" Ren thought.

_"Shut up!" _the spirits shouted in unison.

"Aw, you show your love with anger," Ren mused, not out loud, thankfully, because Yoruichi and Kisuke would have thought she was absolutely insane, which probably wasn't too far from the truth.

"I hope it's nothing, but I can't imagine it will be. People just don't vanish into thin air for no reason," Kisuke remarked.

"Ay, that they don't," Ren agreed, standing up from her mat.

"Well, it's getting late. Keep me posted on the situation, will you?" Ren requested.

"Will do," Kisuke told her.

"You and Shinji have fun!" Yoruichi called as Ren stepped out the door.

"Don't we always?" Ren called back, and then quickly shut the door before Yoruichi could say another word.

"You're late."

"Holy ancestors!" Ren shouted. Shinji had been standing right outside waiting for her, and of course, Ren hadn't been expecting him or even looking in front of her when she went out the door, so in the least to say, she was startled.

"Sorry," Shinji apologized, although the devious grin on his face said that he meant otherwise.

"I swear, you'll be the death of me," Ren breathed, trying to calm herself down.

"Something wrong? That usually wouldn't have bothered you so bad," Shinji observed, as they started to walk away from Yoruichi's office.

"I guess all of the talk of disappearance got to me. Well, I guess it was the possibility of the Thief Clans being involved that really did it," Ren admitted.

"You still worried about them?" Shinji asked her.

"A little, I mean, they weren't so happy when I left them," Ren told him.

"So? You were a kid then. You're way stronger now, plus you have me and a shit-ton of other friends here that'll watch your back."

"I have you with me? That is just so encouraging…"

"Ren…"

"Don't get that warning tone with me, Mister. I was just playing with you. You know I always feel safer when you're with me."

"Better. Hell, I'd fight all of the Thief Clans by myself if I had to to make sure you were safe."

"I know, and I love you for it. And you know I'd do the same for you."

"I know. Hell, I guess we did promise each other that, didn't we? To never turn our backs on each other, no matter what?"

"Yeah, yeah, and you'll protect me and I'll take care of you once you get your ass kicked."

"Please, when was the last time I got my ass kicked?"

"This morning, actually, and just about every morning before. Hiyori is on quite a schedule."

"That doesn't count!"

"Like hell it doesn't, Shinji. But I still love you, even if you get the hell beat out of you by someone half your size."

"And I still love you, even if you're mean to me."

"It's part of my charm!"

"Don't say that. Yoruichi says that."

"Hm. Maybe, just maybe, I'm slowly turning into her."

"That…is a frightening image, Ren."

"It is. I wish I hadn't have said it now."

That image had sent quite a chill down Ren's spine, but that wasn't the only thing that was bothering her. She had a bad feeling: her gut was telling her to run like hell, go home, and hide under her table for the next month or so. Something wasn't sitting well in the air, and it wasn't just the humidity. The air smelled…foul, like death, and it was making the hairs on the back of Ren's neck stand on end.

"Shinji?" Ren called.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Does something feel…wrong to you?" she queried _**(AN: Great word there…)**_

"Not really. Why?" Shinji asked her, and while he was concerned for her, he wasn't sure where she was coming from.

"I just…I don't know. Something just feels odd, that's all," she told him.

"That's unnerving, because your feelings are usually right," Shinji granted.

"Well that doesn't make me feel too much better. I guess we better stay on our toes then," Ren murmured.

_"Damn right you better,"_ Hito agreed.

_"Something is wrong,"_ Kiri warned. _"Something is very wrong indeed."_

"I guess we should," Shinji agreed.

"Ren! Shinji!" The pair quickly turned around right as Yoruichi reached them with her Shunpo.

"What's wrong, Yoruichi?" Ren asked her.

"They're calling an emergency captain meeting! It has something to do with the disappearances and the team that was sent out!" she told them. The black butterfly that was now flying towards Shinji only confirmed Yoruichi's message.

"I see. Well then, looks like I get to sneak around the First Division again, eh?" Ren commented.

"You love it," Yoruichi told her.

"Ren, I love you, but I hope that your instinct was wrong this time," Shinji stated.

"Me too, Shinji, me too," Ren agreed. "But, whatever it is, be careful."

Ren quickly stood on the tips of her toes and gave Shinji one last kiss before they had to part ways, but she didn't draw it out too long for Yoruichi's sake.

"I will, just as long as you are, too," Shinji promised her.

_"Would it be out of character if I said that I hope that that wasn't your last kiss with him?"_ Kiri asked.

_"You're not helping Kiri! And yes, it would be,"_ Hito added.

"Alright, let's go," Yoruichi told Shinji. As he nodded, they both Shunpo'd off, leaving Ren by herself to sneak into First Division.

"I have a feeling that I will need you two now more than I ever had before," Ren thought.

_"And we'll be right here with you, Ren,"_ Hito assured her.

_"Every step of the way,"_ Kiri agreed.

"Thank you," Ren whispered, and with that, she Shunpo'd away into the dark abyss of the night.

* * *

><p>"Lisa, why am I not surprised to see you here?" Ren asked her fellow lieutenant.<p>

"I could say the same to you," Lisa remarked.

"True. Have they started yet?" Ren asked her.

"They're about to," Lisa told her. She may not have said anything, but Ren could tell that Lisa was just as concerned about this whole situation as she was, so right as the Captain-Commander was starting, Ren laid her hand on Lisa's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. Ren could only assume that she was grateful for that since she didn't pull away from her hand.

They were both quiet as they stayed there and listened in on the meeting, but as the Captain-Commander was explaining how something had gone wrong with the team that was sent out, Ren's heart dropped. She couldn't help but think that Kisuke was kicking himself now for sending Hiyori out earlier, and her suspicion was confirmed once he vocalized his concern. But, being the tough ass that she was as a captain, Yoruichi quickly quieted him, and as it was announced that another team would be sent out, Ren knew that she had to go, whether it was against orders or not.

"Lisa-chan!" Shunsui called.

"REN!" Yoruichi practically screamed.

"We're being beckoned, it seems," Ren laughed.

"So it seems," Lisa agreed. "How lucky for us."

"Yes, Captain Shihōin?" Ren asked, as she and Lisa both jumped through the window they had been hiding under.

"Go with them," Yoruichi ordered her, glancing over a Kisuke to show Ren that her main objective was to get Hiyori.

"Yes, Captain," Ren agreed, nodding her heads more towards Kisuke as she did so. She looked him in the eyes and gave him a small smile, and she also laid her hand on her zanpakutō as she did this to show him that she would go all out if she needed to to bring Hiyori back.

"Since the rescue team has been assembled, you should leave immediately. All other captains need to report to their positions as well," the Captain-Commander ordered. "Dismissed!"

"You drag your ass back here, you got it?" Yoruichi whispered as she and Ren clasped their fists together in front of them, as a sort of showing of their unity and understanding of each other.

"Wouldn't dream of not doing it," Ren agreed, letting Yoruichi's fist go and Shunpo'ing out of the meeting hall with the others.

"Be careful, please, be careful, Ren," Yoruichi prayed. Her instincts were telling her the exact same thing that Ren's were telling her: run and hide. This would not end well at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven- And It Just Keeps Rolling Downhill-Part 2

"So, things are going downhill, huh?" Lisa remarked, although it was only to where Ren could hear it.

"Yep, and I can't imagine that it'll get any better," Ren agreed. The recue team, which was composed of Ren, Lisa, Shinji, Rose, Love, and also a man named Hachigen from the Kido Corps, was now on its way to the scene of the incident, the incident being the most recent disappearances of Rukongai residents, and also the place where their friends were in danger. And the worst part was, they didn't have a clue what they were fighting.

"I'll watch your back if you watch mine," Lisa offered, trying to lighten the situation.

"I have quite a few backs to watch, but I will definitely add yours to my list of you want," Ren told Lisa, giving her a small smile that she was sure looked as unsure as she felt.

"I'll take all the extra help I can get tonight," Lisa accepted.

"Ren!" Shinji called. She and Lisa had been hanging towards the back, but Ren was quickly able to hasten her pace and catch up to Shinji.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Don't get mad at me, but you know what I want you to do if this gets too bad," Shinji told her.

"I won't get mad, but you know I can't do that, Shinji," Ren told him, sternly, but sadly.

"I was afraid you'd say that," Shinji replied with a sad smile.

"I know, but it's what I always tell you. Besides, if I left, who'd take care of you if you got your ass kicked?" Ren asked him.

"Yeah, yeah, I get the picture. Wouldn't want anyone else to do it anyways," Shinji scoffed, although it was only playfully,

"I don't know, Love might be happy to do it for me instead," Ren offered, looking back at the captain she was referring to.

"Gladly," he sang, wiggling his eyebrows above his sunglasses as he said so.

"Jeez, you're going to give me an ulcer before we get there, Ren," Shinji told her. "Go back to Lisa and heckle her."

"You know what? I will," Ren agreed, slowing down just enough so she be in the back with Lisa again.

"Been a long day, hasn't it?" Lisa asked her.

"And a great one, until now," Ren answered.

"We're almost there!" Shinji called back to them. Everyone nodded and they were silent after that. The atmosphere turned serious because they had no clue what was waiting for them, but they had to be prepared for their friends' sake.

"Hiyori is up ahead!" Ren called. Something was wrong-well, everything was wrong- but when she felt Hiyori's reiatsu, she knew that things were much worse than they had thought. Hiyori's reiatsu was sporadic; she was scared, and when Hiyori was scared, things were going to go to hell in a hand basket real fast.

"Hiyori!" Shinji yelled.

"What are you doing, Baldy?! Run!" Hiyori screamed. It was right then and there that Ren was stopped in her tracks. There was a monstrous reiatsu not too far from them, right behind Hiyori, and it had to have been what she was running from. It was strong and menacing and everything in between. Things were much worse than they thought.

"I need you two, so terribly bad right now," Ren thought.

_"If I were out there right now, I would hold you Ren," _Kiri assured her.

_"I would piss myself and run, honestly. Whatever that is, it is a beast!"_ Hito admitted.

"It's not human, that's for sure," Ren thought.

"What is it that?" Lisa yelled.

"I-Is that Kensei?" Ren asked, as the supposed 'beast' came into view.

"There's no way," Rose muttered.

"What happened to him?" Love asked.

"There's no telling, but, we know what we have to do," Shinji told them, unsheathing his sword. Everyone nodded and did the same, and Ren had to admit, that even with her trusty tanto blades in her hands, she was still frightened out of her mind.

"What are you doing?! You can't attack him!" Hiyori yelled.

"We aren't going to kill him, Hiyori," Love told her.

"But we can't leave him like this, either," Lisa added.

"So, we'll fight him, not to kill him, but to capture him so we can help him," Rose explained.

"He's stronger than normal," Ren observed. "With that spiritual pressure, I wouldn't chance getting hit by him."

"Let's just hope he's not faster!" Love commented. He was the first to try to attack it- they couldn't call it Kensei, but they couldn't call it a monster, either, since it was their friend- and he was also the first to find out that it was faster now.

Ren wasn't sure why, perhaps it was the shock of seeing Love get hit so hard by what was once their friend, or maybe it was the separate horrific spiritual that suddenly came over them, but suddenly, all of the air that was in her lungs just came out all at once. Once she was flying through the air and the pain started to radiate throughout her torso and darkness started to worm its way through her vision, she figured that it was probably the kick to the gut that she got. She thought that she heard Shinji call her name, but she really couldn't be sure because everything sounded so fuzzy to her.

_"Get up!"_ Hito yelled.

_"Something's wrong, Ren! It hurts!"_ Kiri cried.

"Damn straight it hurts," her mumbled, sitting up and holding her stomach. She had to have blacked out for a second, because at this point, quite a few of her friends were down and out. Kensei hadn't hit her; no, it was the other creature that had appeared, and if Ren had to guess, it was Mashiro. It was hard to tell, really, with the masks that covered their faces, but with Mashiro, the green hair was a dead giveaway.

"You two still with me?" Ren thought.

_"Something is wrong, Ren," _Hito warned her.

_"Something is breaking in here," _Kiri told her.

"I need you to fight it off for as long as you can," Ren told them.

_"We know! We're trying!" _Hito yelled.

"Look, if it gets too bad, I don't want you two to strain yourselves. I need you," Ren told him.

_"We'll try, Ren, we'll try,"_ Kiri assured her.

"That's all I need," Ren muttered. She picked up her tanto blades that had fallen beside her and she slowly stood up from her landing spot.

"Oi, that had to have cracked a few ribs," she breathed. Her reiatsu was usually enough to help shield her from hard hits like that, but whatever happened to Mashiro made her so much stronger, and Ren was so not prepared for her that time. But now, she knew not to get hit again.

"We got this," Ren murmured, bouncing on the balls of her feet a little.

The thing that used to be Mashiro was about to hit Shinji, and if she hit him, it would be on the head, and that might very well kill him, and there was no way in hell that Ren was going to let that happen. She Shunpo'd as hard and fast as she could, and she full-on shoulder tackled the would-be Mashiro. It probably hurt her worse, but Ren was able to get that thing away from Shinji.

As soon as they were about to hit the ground, Ren jumped away from the creature, which was a good thing, because it was right back up as soon as it hit the ground. It let out an animalistic scream that would have scared most normal people, but not Ren. No, Ren was on a mission now, and she was battle ready.

"Hachigen! Shinji! You got him?" Ren called.

"Sort of!" Shinji replied. "We're working on it!"

"Well, I got this one. I'm just gonna warn you, you might need to back away a few feet," Ren cautioned them.

"Err, alright," Shinji acknowledged.

The creature charged at Ren, faster than she could see, and almost too fast for her to feel with her spiritual pressure, but not quite. It was obvious to Ren as she Shunpo'd away that she would have to go at her fastest speed to even try to keep up with this thing. She quickly Shunpo'd around the creature and kicked it in the back of its head, and as it flew forward a little bit, Ren followed right behind it. She used both of her tanto blades to try to cut at the creature, but it quickly span around and tried to kick her. Ren was barely able to move away in time, and the creature's leg nicked her just a little bit, but not enough to do damage.

"You wanna play like that, huh?" Ren muttered. She landed a few feet away from the creature, and Ren had to remind herself that she was not here to kill: she was her to detain so she could help.

Before the creature could move again, Ren quickly Shunpo'd around it. As the creature tried to charge forward a little bit, Ren jumped on it, wrapping her legs around its neck. She took her right blade, Kiri, and stabbed it under the creature's right shoulder bone. As the creature was about to retaliate, Ren quickly Shunpo'd off of it. She took a moment to look over at Shinji.

Hachigen had used some spell to seal Kensei against the ground, but when she looked for him, she saw that Hachigen was down, too. When she looked for Shinji, she saw that he was carrying an injured Hiyori, but what really surprised her was the mask that starting to cover Hiyori's face. Shinji must have been too distracted to notice, and as she looked to see what he was staring at, she understood why.

"I should have known it was that slimy bastard," Ren thought.

_"I've suspected Aizen was up to something for some time now,"_ Hito told her.

"But Gin and Tōsen?" Ren thought.

_"It doesn't matter. They are your enemies now,"_ Kiri stated.

Ren couldn't even think of a reply to her zanpakutōs. Hiyori had changed into one of the creatures, and she was about to attack Shinji and he didn't even know it. Ren was still in mid-air, so she wouldn't be able to get to him fast enough.

"Shinji! Hiyori's-" she tried to scream, but she couldn't get it out fast enough. Mashiro was on her in an instant, and she kicked Ren as hard as she could into the ground. Ren's body created a nice little crater in the ground, but at least the rock debris hit the creature in the face, making it jump away. At least Ren didn't black out this time, but as the blood flew out of her mouth and she could hardly breathe without pain spiking throughout her body, she would have preferred it if she had.

"Ren!" she heard Shinji scream, but his scream was followed by his own yell of pain, so Ren could only assume that Hiyori had attacked him. She felt a thud in the ground beside her, and judging by the spiritual pressure, it was Mashiro, so one of the three traitors had to have attacked her.

There was no telling what that last kick did to her body. No matter how deeply she tried to breathe, she could hardly get any air in at all. She was starting to get a little concerned about it.

_"You done?"_ Hito asked. He wasn't being a smartass this time. He was worried, worried that she wouldn't fight on, worried that she would die.

"I don't think so," Ren told him. "Not quite."

She listened to Aizen and Shinji talk for a few moments, still trying to breathe and pretty well failing to do so, but she was still appalled by what she heard. Aizen's treachery had been going on for quite some time now, and when he started to mention her name, Ren about lost it, and she could tell that Shinji was about to, too.

"It's a shame she hasn't turned with the rest of you. I wonder why not," Aizen pondered.

_"It's because we're stronger than you think, you imbecile,"_ Kiri seethed.

"Probably not the best insult, considering he duped us all," Ren thought.

"Oh, well. I suppose it's time we finished this. Tōsen," Aizen called. Ren reached up and grabbed the edge of her crater, pulling herself up in time to see Tōsen getting ready to attack Shinji.

"This is going to hurt," Ren breathed to herself. With every ounce of energy that she had left, Ren Shunpo'd one last time, out of the crater, and right towards Tōsen. With the momentum of her Shunpo behind her, she pulled her leg back and kicked Tōsen in the face as hard as she could. He flew quite a bit, well away from Shinji, but that kick took a lot out of Ren. She didn't have the energy to catch herself, and she was about to hit the ground hard.

_"Ren, w-we can't,"_ Hito cried.

_"It is too much,"_ Kiri conceded.

"It's alright. I'm probably done for once I hit that ground," Ren thought. But almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she felt a pair of strong arms grab her. She looked up and saw that the hero of her life had caught her.

"Hey there, Captain Hirako," she muttered, trying to give him a smile. A mask was starting to form on his face, just like all of the others.

"Ren," Shinji muttered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she assured. A cough raked through her body, and it hurt so bad that it brought tears to her eyes. She felt something leak out of her mouth and wrap around one half of her lower jaw, and she knew what it was. Her zanpakutō had done well to fight it this long.

"They did good to fight it for so long," Ren told him.

"I'll say," Shinji agreed.

"He's coming back to try again, you know," Ren warned him. "Tōsen, that is."

Right when she said it, Tōsen Shunpo'd in front of them, but as soon as he raised his blade, he was gone. As Ren looked to the side, she saw that someone in a black cloak had attacked Tōsen, and it was Kisuke.

"Ren," Shinji muttered. She looked up at him, and she could tell by the look on his face that he was about to fade out.

"We have to make it through this, Shinji. Just hold on. This isn't the end," Ren assured him.

"I'll hold on if you do," Shinji offered, swaying as he made the statement.

"Deal," Ren agreed, and when she muttered the word, Shinji passed out, falling to the ground beside her. A giant, electric Kido blast flew by them, and then she couldn't feel the traitors' reiatsus anymore. The bastards ran, and she had no doubt in her mind that they had a plan to get away with this. Ren sat up slowly beside Shinji.

"Kisuke," she wheezed. Breathing was even more difficult for her now, but she couldn't just lie there and do nothing.

"Can you two fight just a little longer?" Ren thought.

_"Just a little bit,"_ Kiri told her.

"Thank you," Ren told her.

"Don't worry Ren, we'll get you all out of here," Kisuke assured her. "Tessai, is there anything you can do?"

"Yes, just give me one moment!" Tessai shouted.

"Kisuke, I'm sorry," Ren told him.

"What? Why?" Kisuke asked her.

"I couldn't bring her back to you safely," Ren answered.

"No, none of this is your fault Ren. You tried your best, but there was no way you could have been ready for this," Kisuke told her.

"Don't I know that," Ren agreed.

* * *

><p>Tessai had used some Kido technique that Ren had never seen before to transport them away from that awful scene. He and Kisuke had left them some time ago, and she could only assume that they had been arrested, no doubt thanks to Aizen. None of the others had woken up, which was probably for the better at this point.<p>

Ren knew what she had to do. She couldn't just sit there while Kisuke and Tessai took the blame for everything, but she knew that she needed help.

"You two alright in there?" Ren thought.

_"Alright enough,"_ Hit replied.

"Great. Here we go."

"Lose your form and become the shadow you were created to be, Hitokiri," Ren called. Her tanto turned to scorpion tail blades, with two tails adorning each of her hands. Hito and Kiri were never ones to be flashy, only deadly. The main part of Ren's Shikai wasn't the form her blades took, but the abilities that they gave her. They let her become a shadow, the perfect thief, the perfect assassin, the perfect unseen entity.

Ren walked over to one of the walls and reached out to touch its shadow. As soon as she touched it, her hand turned black, a black that wisped as if it were a fire, and then her arm turned, and then the rest of her body. She merged with the wall's shadow, and she quickly went through the wall, as light as air as she did so. As she went through the wall, she focused on absorbing her reiatsu, so no one could sense her and so she wouldn't leave a single trace of herself behind.

Once she was outside, Ren looked around and realized that she was in Twelfth Division, Kisuke's Division. Thank goodness Mayuri wasn't around, or she wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving her friends behind. She figured Aizen and the other two traitors wouldn't bother them; they were two busy trying get Kisuke and Tessai the guilty verdict.

Sticking to the shadows of the night around her, Ren quickly Shunpo'd away to the one place she knew she would be safe, to the one person that she knew would help her. Once she reached the Second Division, Ren couldn't help but breathe a labored breath of relief. Yoruichi was where she was supposed to be for once.

When she reached the door to Yoruichi's office, Ren quickly merged with the door's shadow and went through it. Yoruichi was at her desk, and as soon as Ren was in, Yoruichi was, in the least to say, startled by what she saw. A humanoid form made out of wisped black fire had just stepped through her office door. She didn't know what to do. Ren quickly let the shadows wash away from her body, but she kept a hold of her scorpion blades so she could remain in her Shikai. She didn't know if she would be able to enter it again if she dropped it.

"Ren?!" Yoruichi gasped. Ren had to lean against the wall for support.

"Yoruichi," she wheezed. "Aizen…Aizen betrayed us. He did something to us, to me and Shinji and the others. He-" Another cough raked through Ren's body, and she heard an ungodly screech in her head.

"Ah! Damn that hurt!" Ren cried, although she wasn't very loud due to her lack of air.

"Ren, are you…going to make it?" Yoruichi asked her.

"I don't know. It doesn't feel like it, but that's just me being a big baby," Ren grinned at her. "But, you've got to help us, Yoruichi. Kisuke and Tessai were arrested. I think Aizen is having this put off on them."

"I was going to help you the moment I knew that it was you that had stepped into my office, Ren, no need to even ask," Yoruichi told her, pulling something out of her desk. It was a cloak.

"You know that there is no coming back, right?" Ren reminded her.

"I know, but I won't abandon you guys," Yoruichi assured her, throwing the cloak around her shoulders.

"Then let's go," Ren said, allowing the shadows to engulf her once more.

* * *

><p>"We have to move them," Yoruichi announced. They were back in the Twelfth Division, and Yoruichi had a plan.<p>

"Where?" Ren asked her, taking a moment to try to breathe, although it was getting harder and harder to do that. Her head was feeling overly light at this point.

"The cave, that's where. And we need to do this in one trip," Yoruichi told her.

"I see," Ren choked.

"Ren, are you sure that you can do this?" Yoruichi asked her.

"I have to, Yoruichi, I promised him," Ren told, her looking over at the fallen Shinji. Yoruichi nodded her head in understanding.

"Can you carry any, Ren?" she asked.

"Watch this," Ren wheezed. She held up her left hand, and the two scorpion tails dissipated into the same black wisps that had engulfed Ren earlier. Ren flattened out her hand, and the shadows flattened into a sort of blanket. She covered Shinji, Rose, Love, Lisa, and Hiyori with it, and if they were awake, they would have noticed an air-like, breathtaking feeling come over them.

"Can you get the heavier ones?" Ren asked Yoruichi.

"I'm not sure Mashiro would appreciate you calling her 'heavier'," Yoruichi noted.

"Pardon the technicality. We need to move. I don't know how long I can keep this up," Ren told her, and it sounded like she had been kicked in the throat. If she could feel anything but pain, her chest probably would have felt real tight by now.

"You got it," Yoruichi agreed. "Just don't give up."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ren wheezed, and a little bit of blood trickled out of her mouth along with the statement.

* * *

><p>The trip was taking its toll on Ren. She had manipulated her shadows to engulf her friends, putting them in a form much like her own, so she couldn't feel their weight, but this was a difficult technique for her to use. She could feel her spiritual pressure draining fast, and that was only thing that was keeping her strong enough to do any sort of breathing at all, so when it was completely drained, she wasn't quite sure how performing that vital function would go for her.<p>

"Almost there!" Yoruichi called to her. Ren acknowledged her with a nod.

"R-Ren…"

Ren looked over to her side to look at the shadow platform that her friends were on. It had been Shinji that called her name, although his voice was distorted. The mask was covering more of his face now, but he was still passed out. Ren silently hoped that when she succumbed to her slumber, that she would be able to breathe and that she wouldn't feel any pain. She had had enough of that for one day. At least Shinji was still thinking about her, but hopefully he didn't think she was dead or anything.

"We're here!" Yoruichi called, jumping through the mouth of cave. Ren quickly followed, and as soon as she hit solid ground, she released her friends from her shadows, and as the shadows retracted to her, she finally reverted out of her Shikai. Her tanto blades fell to her side and she fell to her hands and knees, wheezing and coughing as she went.

"Ren!" Yoruichi yelled. She was beside Ren a split second, rubbing her between her shoulders as she coughed.

"Think Kisuke and Tessai are alright?" Ren wheezed.

"They're fine. I'm about to go get them," Yoruichi assured her. "What about you?"

"I'll be dandy," Ren choked. Tears started streaming down her face.

"Yoruichi," she cried. "Damn it, Yoruichi! Why?! Why today of all days?!"

"Shhh, calm down, honey, you need to breathe," Yoruichi soothed. She knew that when Ren was finally out of the heart of the action, that she would finally let the grief overwhelm her.

"On our anniversary, of all days," Ren cried, finally passing out and letting the darkness overcome her.

Once Yoruichi saw that she was still breathing, she quickly Shunpo'd out of the cave to go get Kisuke and Tessai. She had tears streaming down her face the whole time. Just a few decades ago, her best friend was experiencing one of the best days of her life with the man that she cherished most in this world, and Sousuke Aizen had managed to tarnish the anniversary of that day, of that union, with something truly monstrous. Yoruichi would not rest until he paid.

_**Author's Note: BOOM! How's that for Part 2? And before you all hate me or hurt me, I promised you flashbacks, right? Can you guess what happened at the sunset now? I'm so evil to you guys right now! XD…But maybe not. It got the story rolling, didn't it? And even though I broke this into two chapters, this part still turned out obnoxiously long…Anyways, I'll try to have the next one out soon, although it probably won't be as soon as these two were. I hope you enjoyed, and that you don't want to hurt me too badly! Stick around, the next chapter might just be a little happier!**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's Note: Just to clarify, when all of the text is in italics, it's a memory. If the dialogue is the only thing in italics, it is Ren's zanpakutō's talking…Because clarification is a beautiful thing…And also to clarify, since I think I haven't done a disclaimer yet, I don't own Bleach, or any of its characters, no matter how hard I dream. Ren and her zanpakutōs, however, are the creation of my strange little imagination. Again, clarification…**_

Chapter Eight-Waking Up

_"Your hair's a little longer."_

_ "So is yours, by some miracle, Shinji."_

_ "I'm being serious, Ren! Are you gonna let it grow out a little or what?"_

_ "Well, I haven't exactly cut it recently, so…Which do you think?"_

_ "I think I'm afraid of what you'll do to me if I say the wrong answer."_

_ "Psh, I wouldn't do anything to you, Shinji. I'm just proud that you actually noticed that I hadn't cut it any time recently."_

_ "There's a backhanded compliment in there somewhere…I think."_

_ "It's in there, somewhere."_

_ "You're awful, Ren."_

_ "And I just complimented you! You are so mean to me, Shinji."_

_ "I am not. You love it."_

_ Ren and Shinji were at their usual spot in front of the lake, waiting for the sun to set. This was a ritual that they had started shortly after Ren had joined the Gotei 13, not too long after her first day, when she and Shinji had had their awkward first meeting and Shinji had to really work to redeem himself. This beautiful spot had become extremely important to them; it was place that they could escape to together, where they could go to leave all of their troubles behind and just be together in peace and serenity._

_ "I do not. I love __**you**__, though, even if you are overly mean to me," Ren teased._

_ "Ah, well, at least someone can look past my mean ass exterior and still love me," Shinji sarcastically replied._

_ "I know, right? It blew my mind, too!" Ren told him, swinging her legs over his and hopping into his lap._

_ "If I was so mean, then I wouldn't let you sit on me," Shinji informed her. _

_ "Please, you're getting as much enjoyment out of this as I am," Ren retorted, rolling her eyes at him and leaning her head on his chest. She loved to just lay her head against his chest and listen to his heart beat; the steady rhythm usually calmed her, but at that moment, his heart was beating a mile a minute._

_ "Your heart's beating real fast," Ren muttered, holding her hand up to his chest and laying it over his heart._

_ "Well, there is a beautiful girl in my lap, so, you know," Shinji told her, trying to look away from her. The sun was just about to set, but instead of watching it, Ren seemed to be more interested in Shinji at the moment, which he would have been fine with at any other time, just not then._

_ "No, it's not that," Ren stated, using her thumb to trace the collar if Shinji's captain's haori. _

_ "And just how would you know that?" Shinji asked her, incredulously._

_ "Well, I am sitting on your lap, so I think I might have noticed if it was that," Ren told him._

_ "I think you're full of it," Shinji commented._

_ "I don't," Ren countered. "What's on your mind, Captain Hirako?"_

_ "What makes you think something's on my mind?" Shinji asked her._

_ "Because I know you, Shinji, like the back of my hand. Something's eating at you, so, what is it?"_

_ "It's nothing, really." Shinji took the orange pendant that he had given Ren almost two decades ago and started rubbing it between his index finger and thumb._

_ "If it was nothing, your heart wouldn't be going so fast and you wouldn't be trying to deflect my questions, now would you?"_

_ "I, uh…"_

_ "Shinji, honey, you know that you can tell me anything, right?"_

_ "I know, it's just…"_

_ When Shinji didn't say anything else for a while, Ren decided to give him a little encouragement. She slowly leaned up and gave Shinji a small, innocent peck on the lips._

_ "Come on, out with it Hirako."_

_ "Jeez, I really, really don't know how to say this, Ren."_

_ "Just go for it, I won't judge you if you sound like an idiot."_

_ "Oh, well, with that boost of confidence…"_

_ "Shinji…"_

_ "Fine. Come here." Shinji adjusted Ren to where she was sitting up and he could look her in the eyes._

_ "I'm here. Always will be. Now, tell me what is going on with you, Shinji." Shinji took in a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for what he was about to do._

_ "Ren, I'm gonna sound like a real idiot right now, but bear with me, alright?"_

_ "Alright, I'm all ears, Shinji."_

_ "Alright, just let me get this all out, no interruptions, just let me say what I gotta say."_

_ "Well get to it then."_

_ "Fine. Ren, I love you, and I have since the first moment I saw you. You know, the first day you came here, when all of those wild ass rumors were floating around and no one knew who you were, I actually thought that you would be some weird-looking, masculine criminal, and as it turned out, you were nothing like that. You are the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen, and that day that I met you turned out to be one of the best days of my life. Damn, you're one of the bravest people I know, but you also have heart under that tough exterior, and that's what I love about you most. I know we joke about it a lot, but I know, without a doubt, if anything ever did happen to me, you'd be there, every second of the way, either taking care of me or making sure that I was taken care of. _

"_Hell, I love everything about you, Ren: the way you're not afraid to tell me straight up if I'm being an idiot, that sarcastic eye roll you give people, the way you put so much love in your cooking, hell, I even love the way you just sit there and stare off into space sometimes when no one's looking. You do so much for me Ren, and I just want to start giving some of that back to you. I want you to know that I'll always be there for you, whether times are bad or good, whether you're sick or just pissed off, or whatever the case may be. I want to be there when you're sad or sick, so that I can hold you and tell you that everything will be alright, and I'll be damned if I won't do everything in my power to make it right. _

"_I want to be with you until the day that I die, Ren, 'cuz then I know that I'll die happy because I'll die with you, the woman that I love, by my side. I'll do anything you for, Ren. I'd sacrifice anything just to be able to stand by you; I'll give you everything that you could possibly ask for, Ren, but I just you need you to say one thing first."_

"_What are you saying, Shinji?" Ren stuttered. A few tears had escaped her eyes during Shinji's speech, and now he was reaching up with both of his hands to wipe them off of her face. _

"_I'm askin' ya' to marry me, Ren," Shinji told her. "And to make me the happiest man in Soul Society."_

"_No shit?" Ren laughed/cried. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was feeling so much joy at that moment that she just couldn't keep her tears in. The smile that adorned her face at that moment was the smile of the happiest woman on the planet, and she dared anyone to try to take that title from her._

"_No shit. What do ya' say?" Shinji asked her._

"_Hell yeah I'll marry you, Shinji," Ren answered, her voice barely audible through her tears. She crashed her lips against Shinji's, and he was happy to mirror her delight. Ren, the woman he loved more than anything else on the Earth, had just agreed to spend the rest of her life with him; he never would have imagined that that could happen all those years ago when he first met her._

"_You know, I told you that I wasn't really sure how to go about this," Shinji started._

"_I think you did it perfectly," Ren assured him, wiping some more of her tears away. _

"_I mean, I didn't know when to take it out, but I do have a ring for you, if you want it," Shinji teased._

_ "'If you want it'," Ren repeated. "Of course I want it! I gonna wear it proudly, too, so everybody knows that I'm yours and that I will be until the day I die!"_

_ "I think they probably already know that, Ren, but I guess I'll give it to you… Oh wait, I already put it on you! Would you look at that!" Ren thought that Shinji was bullshitting her, but when she looked down at her left hand, there it was, a beautiful engagement ring that wasn't too excessive and extravagant, but one that was perfect for Ren, one that really reflected her personality._

_ "Oh, wow, Shinji! It's gorgeous!" Ren gasped._

_ "You know, the last time that we were here and you said that, I didn't say this because I thought it was too soon, but now, I'll say it. It's not the only thing, Ren. And in my opinion, it pales in comparison to the gorgeous thing that I'm holding," Shinji told her._

_ "You smooth little troll. How'd you put that on me without me realizing?" Ren wondered._

_ "Simple. Yoruichi taught me how to do it," Shinji answered. Ren was shocked._

_ "Did she know you were doing this?" Ren asked._

_ "Hell no. There's no way she would have been able to keep it a secret," Shinji laughed._

_ "Not a chance in hell," Ren agreed. "Wow, so I get to be Ren Hirako."_

_ "Damn that has a nice ring to it," Shinji commented._

_ "It does, doesn't it?" Ren agreed, leaning in to give Shinji another kiss. _

_ "Yoruichi's gonna have a shit when we tell her!" Ren laughed._

_ "She's gonna kill me for not telling her beforehand," Shinji added._

_ "Well, I won't let her hurt you too bad," Ren assured her. "'Cuz, you know, I love you."_

_ "I know. I love you, too, Lieutenant Hirako."_

* * *

><p>"No, you won't take that from me," Ren stated as she opened her eyes. She was in a different world now, one that was inside the depths of her very soul. She was staring into the face of a Hollow, her Hollow. At first, when she came into this inner world of hers, she met Hito and Kiri, who gave her some mostly encouraging words before they allowed the Hollow to come out.<p>

The Hollow looked like a combination of Hito and Kiri and Ren. When they were in their normal forms, Ren's zanpakutō's were beautiful. Kiri's fair features were so light and delicate, and they went perfectly with her white hair, and her eyes were an endless pitch black with no visible iris. Hito could make any woman swoon before him. His features were strong, and his hair was as black as Kiri's eyes, and his eyes were so white that they matched Kiri's hair and they also had no sign of an iris. The inverted features of her two zanpakutō's spirits came together to from her Hollow; it was like it was split in half. One half had Hito's hair and eyes, while the other had Kiri's hair and eyes. While it kept her zanpakutōs' color scheme, the Hollow did take most of Ren's features. The body shape, most of the facial features, everything else matched Ren. What stuck out most to Ren was that, unlike her zanpakutōs, her Hollow had irises in its eyes, and they were a beastly yellow.

"Why not?" her Hollow asked her, its distorted voice raking against Ren's ears like nails on a chalk board.

"Those are my memories. You can't have them, you damn monster," Ren told it. Her Hollow had been trying to take Ren's memories, saying that she would take them in an exchange for more power for Ren, but Ren wasn't stupid. She knew that her Hollow was only trying to fool her, plus, her memories were way too important to her for her to just give them up.

"Me, a monster? Have you looked at yourself?" the Hollow asked. Ren looked down at one of her blades and held it up so she could see her reflection in it. Her eyes were just as yellow and beastly as the Hollow's were, and her face was covered in a mask. The right side was smooth, and the right eye socket was slanted and feminine; the right side of her mouth was normal, beautiful even. The left side, however, was a different story. The left eye socket just plainly looked pissed off, and instead of being smooth like the other half of the mask, the left side looked like it was made of multiple strips of whatever the mask was made of laid side by side, and they matched the contours of Ren's face, like a muscle of some sort; the left side of her mouth was nowhere near as beautiful as the right side: it was made of perfectly interlocked, beastly teeth.

"Please. This mask is sexy and you know it," Ren commented. The Hollow only shook its head.

"I chose to try to beat you mentally instead of physically and look at where it got me," the Hollow scoffed.

"Jokes on you," Ren breathed.

"I suppose it is. Obviously your will is too strong for me at this point, which I should have figured, you stubborn ass mule, but oh well. Better luck next time, I suppose," the Hollow ranted.

"Next time?" Ren asked it, wary of having to fight this thing again.

"Yeah, next time. I'll let you use my powers for now, but I'll never just lay down and fade away," the Hollow warned her. "I'll be back when you least expect it, and when that happens, I'll be the one in charge of this operation." Ren shuddered at the thought of her body being considered an 'operation', but she chose to ignore it for the moment.

"Sounds like you're a bit stubborn yourself," Ren commented.

"Well, I am a part of you, I suppose, so it only makes sense," the Hollow agreed.

"This is creepy that we're agreeing. Can you just fade away so we can call this a day? I have a worried husband to get back to," Ren told it.

"Fine, fine," the Hollow conceded, and it started to dissipate into the world around it.

"But remember," the Hollow began.

"You'll be back, I know, I know," Ren finished. The Hollow snickered as it finally finished fading away.

"Good work," Hito commented, appearing to Ren's left.

"I couldn't have done it better myself," Kiri agreed, appearing at Ren's right.

"You two definitely had an input on the mask," Ren commented.

"No shit? I didn't notice," Hito sarcastically scoffed.

"Silence. She's had a long day, Hito," Kiri warned.

"I have, so if you don't mind, I'll get back to you two later. I have important business to attend to," Ren told them.

"More like you have to go stop your husband from crying his eyes out in worry," Hito muttered.

"Is he crying?!" Ren asked, in shock and in worry.

"No, Ren. Hito's being an ass, as usual," Kiri assured her.

"Hey!" Hito cried out.

"Just pointing out the obvious," Kiri conceded.

"I-I'm just done here," Ren breathed, trying to ignore her bickering zanpakutō spirits. She closed her eyes, and darkness overcame her once more.

* * *

><p>"Ren!" As Ren slowly came back into consciousness, she knew that she should have expected this. It was obviously Shinji that was yelling her name, and to top it all off, he had her by the shoulders and he was shaking the life out of her. It was quite frankly starting to make her feel a little dizzy.<p>

"Sh-Sh-Shinji, sto-o-o-p," Ren called out.

"Ren?" Shinji called back. Now that he finally stopped shaking her, Ren felt that it was safe to finally open her eyes, but when she did open them, she received quite the heart-stopper.

"Where the hell is your hair?" Ren nearly screamed. All that long-ass hair, that Shinji had been so proud of, was now gone. Someone had chopped it all off, and now his hair barely went to his jawline, although the ends were still perfectly straight, just like he liked them.

"I ripped it all off of him," Lisa said in the background, and she sounded so serious when she said it.

"Haha, Lisa. What in the world are you wearing?" Ren asked her.

"You like? I chose it just for you," Lisa told her, standing up to show her just how short the skirt was, and that her shirt didn't come down all the way so that it showed off some of her torso

"I can see that," Ren commented, the sarcasm basically oozing off of her voice.

"Kisuke-san put us in gigais, and we figured we should probably change our appearances a little, to 'fit in' as he put it," Hachigen told her.

"Alright then," Ren replied, still not fully comprehending what was going on because she was a little disoriented, but she went with it.

"Get your ass up and I'll take you to your gigai," Hiyori called out.

"Hey! I wanted to bring her!" Shinji cried.

"Tough shit!" Hiyori yelled, throwing her sandal at Shinji and hitting him right in the face with it. Ren couldn't help but giggle when he fell back and hit the ground.

"Alright, give me a second," Ren called to Hiyori.

"You know, I do kind of like the hair. It frames that handsome face of yours nicely," Ren whispered to Shinji. Ren laughed when he blushed, because she could only see it around the edges of Hiyori's sandal.

"I'll take that," Ren stated, reaching down and grabbing the sandal, slowly peeling it off of Shinji's face.

"I'll try to look nice for you when I get back, dear," Ren teased Shinji.

"Pfft, like you have to try," Shinji snickered.

"Well, I'm shaving my head, so we'll see!" Ren called back to him as she ran off to catch up with Hiyori.

"WAIT! WHAT DID YOU SAY!?" Shinji screamed.

"Shut up!" Kensei yelled, smacking Shinji on the back of the head.

"Like she'd actually do it," Rose laughed.

"She'd still look great, even if she did do it," Lisa commented.

"Hey! That's my wife!" Shinji shouted.

"Oh? Do you feel threatened by me, Shinji?" Lisa challenged him.

"Well, no, I mean," Shinji began.

"Then let it go," Lisa told him, and the others laughed at the defeated look on his face.

* * *

><p>"You got done pretty quick," Hiyori commented.<p>

"With what, my Hollow?" Ren asked her, pulling a shirt down over her head.

"Yeah," Hiyori replied. She was looking anywhere but at Ren, since Ren was in fact getting dressed. It was now pretty obvious why Shinji had wanted go instead of Hiyori.

"Well, I knew I had to get to that buffoon in there, so I tried to make it quick," Ren told her.

"Was it hard?" Hiyori asked her, mildly startling Ren.

"I mean, mine wasn't too bad, but yours might be tougher," Ren told her. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Hiyori quickly told her. Ren just looked at her for a moment.

"I mean, it's," Hiyori stuttered. "This is all just so messed up! Why us? Why didn't anyone else believe us?"

At that point, Hiyori was almost in tears, which was obviously a rare occasion. Ren did the only thing that she knew to do, and she walked over to Hiyori, kneeled in front of her, and pulled her into a tight embrace. Hiyori buried her face on Ren's chest and just let the tears go.

"I'm scared," Hiyori admitted. Ren had just sat there and let her cry for a moment, but Hiyori finally confessed what was wrong with her.

"Hey, look at me, Hiyori," Ren coaxed, and Hiyori obliged her for a moment. Ren reached up and wiped some of her tears away.

"We're going to be alright," Ren assured her. "And you're going to be alright because we're all right here with you. You don't have to be ashamed because you're scared, Hiyori; we all are. You just have to fight through it."

"Promise you'll stay with me?" Hiyori pleaded.

"Yeah. Now put that tough-ass face of yours back on. You go in there with your head held high and you take your Hollow on like a champion and show it who's boss!" Ren encouraged her. Hiyori reached up and wiped the rest of her tears away, and then gave herself a light smack so she could regain her focus.

"Thanks Ren, you- you don't have pants on," Hiyori noticed, her face turning beet red.

"No she does not." Both of the girls looked around, only to see Shinji standing in the doorway of the room that they were in.

"EW! You're disgusting, Baldy!" Hiyori screamed, darting out of the room. Ren just had to laugh at the whole situation.

"Poor girl is probably scarred for life now, Shinji," Ren commented.

"She started it. I specifically told her that I wanted to bring you here for this part, but no, someone just had to intervene," Shinji rambled. "And I missed the best part."

"Maybe not. I do have tears all over my shirt now, so I might need to change it," Ren commented.

"Don't let me stop you," Shinji encouraged her.

"And I won't kick you out of here, as long as you promise to keep what just happened between me and Hiyori in here to yourself," Ren offered him.

"I wouldn't have said anything anyways. She'd kill me if I did," Shinji told her. Ren just shrugged and turned away from Shinji, pulling her shirt back over her head.

"Hey! At least turn around!" Shinji cried.

"What? The back view not good enough, sweetheart?" Ren taunted, throwing her wet shirt back at him and picking up a burnt orange halter top. (_**Author's Note: I know that they wouldn't have had some of their clothes a hundred years ago, but bear with me. I'm just giving you guys an idea of what she wears.)**_

"Ooh, I like this one," Ren commented, pulling the top over her head and down her torso. "Wanna fix the neck for me, Shinji dear?"

"Huh? Oh, sure," Shinji agreed, snapping out of his trance for a moment. He walked over to his wife and fastened the neck of her new shirt for her, although it was a little hard for him to focus at that point.

"Thank you," Ren told him once he was done. "You know, I still don't have pants on."

"I don't mind, really," Shinji assured her.

"I bet you don't, but everyone else might."

"Fine, fine. Take away a man's dreams, why don't you."

"Oh, get over it." Ren looked around for a moment, but then a black skirt caught her eyes. It wasn't quite as short as Lisa's was, but it wasn't overly long, either.

"Ha-ha! Found one!" Ren announced, picking the skirt up and quickly putting it on. When her announcement was met with nothing but silence, Ren quickly looked back at Shinji, only to see him staring at the floor. Ren just let out a short breath and walked over to him. Once she reached him, she lifted her arms up and wrapped them around his neck, slightly pulling him down to her level, enough so she could rest her chin on his shoulder. Shinji just buried his face in her shoulder.

"I was so scared, Ren," he whimpered.

"I know. I'm sorry you had to watch that, but it wasn't any easier for me when you had to go through it," she told him, running her hand through his hair.

"I'm not just talking about that, Ren. I thought you were dead. I was afraid you wouldn't be there when I woke up," Shinji reiterated, wrapping his arms around her waist. Ren just held him tighter.

"I promised you I'd always be there, right? I'm not going to leave you anytime soon, Shinji, and I mean that."

"I couldn't keep you safe, Ren." Ren felt a few tear drops fall on her bare shoulder.

"Don't cry Shinji. You couldn't have known what was going to happen."

"I'm still supposed to protect you, Ren, and I failed at that miserably!" Ren couldn't help it as her own tears started to fall; she couldn't bear to watch Shinji go through such sadness. She wanted to take that pain away from him, but here she was, wallowing in it herself.

"No, you didn't. We made it, didn't we? We're still alive, and I'm right here with you, so don't you dare feel guilty for what that bastard did. I love you, and you and me and all the others did all that we could, Shinji, and we made it to fight another day."

"I love you, Ren. Don't ever change, and please don't ever leave me."

"I won't, Shinji, I won't."

The couple just stood there, letting time pass them by as the held each other. Their comrades left them alone for a while, because they knew that at that time, Shinji and Ren needed each other more than ever. As they both let their tears fall, they shared one other's fears and sadness, with each trying to take the other's pain away, but finding that they had too much of their own to even try to do that. So they just stood there, embracing each other, trying to find some comfort in their love, the love that had stayed strong through one of the most horrendous moments of their lives. They had lived to fight another day, and they still had each other and their friends. He may not have realized it, but Aizen had successfully started a war with them, and it was a war that they would fight to the death in if they had to.

_**Author's Note: That didn't take too long to post, did it? There was a lot of description in this one, and not just physical description, but mental and emotional description, too. And by some miracle, this one was longer than chapter 7! I figured it would be a shorter one, but once I finished writing it, it just kind of came out long…obviously. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the nice fluffy moment that I threw in there before the heartache. I promised you guys flashbacks, and there's the first of many! And if you just so happened to like this one, please do review, or follow, or even favorite: any of those options will make me a happy camper! Thanks to ChibiCheshire, niteshine, TulipGirl15, and for all of the love!**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Note: Slight M-Rated scene in the beginning here, but nothing too heavy or in depth. However, if you really don't want to read it, just skip past the italics. **_

Chapter Nine-Morning Problems

_"You're gonna kill me here, Ren."_

_ "Stop being such a big baby, Shinji. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I promise, I'll take care of ya'."_

_ "I just…I just wanna touch you, Ren." _

_ "Fine," Ren finally conceded. She reached down beside her and took Shinji's hands from where he had twisted them in the sheets and brought them up so they rested on her waist. Right off the bat, his grip on her was tight, and she had barely just begun her torture on him. With a devilish smirk on her face, Ren quickly finished undoing Shinji's tie and practically ripped his button-up shirt open._

_ "I kind of liked that shirt," Shinji commented, and Ren could have sworn that she heard some kind of beeping in her head. _

_ "Is that really your main concern right now?" Ren asked him. Before he could answer her, Ren continued her assault on his neck, making anything he was about to say come out as a groan instead. She had been working on the juncture that was right between his neck and inner shoulder, and she already had a nice little bruise forming there. In an attempt to torture him even more, Ren arched her back a little, causing her exposed breasts to lightly pass over Shinji's bare chest. Just as another moan was about to come out of his mouth, Ren lightly bit into the spot that she had marked, causing Shinji to buck his hips up into hers. Ren couldn't help the little moan that escaped her as her hips seemed to react on their own volition and grind down against his in response, which caused a lovely little friction between them. His grip tightened on her waist while another groan went across his lips, but Ren was caught off guard when she heard that sudden beeping again._

_ "Ah, Ren, you've got to stop doing this to me," Shinji begged her, his voice laden with the overwhelming desire that she had filled him with. He should have known as soon as he walked into their room and saw that she was in nothing but her lace panties and waiting for him, that she would do something like this. She was always such a tease with him, although he couldn't deny that he encouraged her sometimes. But, when she told him that she wouldn't let him touch her this time, Shinji knew that Ren was out to torture him, and while being tortured by his beautiful wife was something straight out of his greatest fantasies, Shinji knew that he wouldn't be able to last much longer. She always held back just enough to make him want more, but she never gave him enough to satiate him for even a small moment, and he felt like he might explode at any point._

_ "Are you sure you want that, Shinji?" Ren teased, lightly tracing her fingers over his belt. _

_ "I might actually die if you don't," he grunted._

_ "Oh, well, if that's the case…" Just as Ren was trying to unfasten his belt, she heard that damn beeping again. It just kept getting louder and louder, until finally everything in front of Ren started to slowly fade away…_

* * *

><p>Ren smacked that damn alarm clock as hard as she could and it slammed into the wall, causing the annoying device to crumble to pieces. Who in the world would invent something like that, something that could cut into such a wonderful dream and stop it right before the good part started? Ren couldn't help but picture Aizen sitting at a desk with some tools in front of him, trying to put together something sinister, something so evil that it could hit Ren right where it hurt the most: in her dirty subconscious mind. She knew that wasn't the truth, but she wouldn't put it past him.<p>

Ren let out a deep sigh and looked on the bed beside her, which only caused her to roll her eyes and let out another sigh. How he could sleep through all of that damn racket still amazed her to no end. Ren gently crawled over closer to Shinji, sitting up and throwing one of her legs over him so she was straddling him. He looked so peaceful in his sleep, like he didn't have a care in the world, and while Ren loved seeing her dear husband at ease, it was time for him to get his ass up.

"Hoy, wake up," Ren demanded, poking him in the forehead. When he didn't budge, Ren got mildly irritated.

"Wake up," she repeated, nudging his shoulder a bit. He still didn't respond. If Ren wasn't able to keep her morning temper under control, she was going to end up choking him in his sleep. This happened every time that she tried to wake him up early in the morning; he stayed asleep no matter what she did, and she tended to get rather peeved at that. If he wasn't awake after her third try, things were going to get pretty rough for him.

"You are being such a little bitch," Ren muttered.

"Heeeey! Wake up!" Ren called, using her legs so she could lift up and bounce on him, which also shook the bed under them. This time, he actually responded, letting out a groan of disapproval and reaching up to rub his eyes.

"Ren, you know I love it when you wake me up like this, but why do you have to do it so damn early sometimes?" Shinji grumbled.

"Shut it, you know you love it," Ren scoffed. "This is your fault anyways."

"How's that?" he asked her, opening his eyes and looking up at her. He couldn't understand how she managed to look so damn good right after she woke up. Her hair had gotten wonderfully disheveled over the night, and her eyes looked dazed and deceivingly innocent in their tired state. He couldn't complain, though, because it was definitely nice to wake up to such a stunning sight.

"I don't know, you tell me. Since when do I have to wake my husband up so he can get ready to go to high school?" Ren countered, putting an emphasis on high school.

"Did my alarm not go off?" Shinji wondered.

"Tch, like that damn thing could ever wake you up," Ren scoffed. "You have to get a new one, by the way."

"Did you break another one, Ren?" Shinji asked her incredulously.

"I apologize. I can't help it if my husband has the uncanny ability to sleep through a bomb going off under his ass," Ren replied, rolling off of him and back over to her side of the bed.

"Please, that's an exaggeration and you know it," Shinji scoffed, following her lead and rolling over to where he was hovering on top of her.

"How much you wanna bet on it?" Ren asked him, raising an eyebrow as she did so.

"Aren't you just adorable," Shinji cooed, leaning down and placing a soft kiss on her lips that she returned rather enthusiastically. He had a feeling that he knew why she was so cranky that she had been woken up, and he was usually able to have a lot of fun with her when situations like these popped up. He was torn between actually being responsible and getting dressed for school, or spending some good quality alone time with his 'frazzled' wife.

"Get ready for school Shinji," Ren muttered against his lips, pulling herself away from him a bit so she wouldn't get carried away.

"But why? This is so much more fun," he replied. "You know, as of today, you are officially with a substantially younger man, who also happens to be a high school student."

"What are you saying, Shinji?" Ren asked him, pushing him away a little so she could look him in the eyes.

"Nothin'," he chortled. "My little cougar."

"Oh, Shinji, you are such an ass!" Ren laughed, frantically pushing him away.

"What? It's true!" Shinji laughed, returning to his side of the bed.

"It is not! You are older than me by a decade!" Ren reminded him. "Now go get ready! You're going to be late!"

"Fine, fine," Shinji conceded, finally getting out of bed. Ren snuggled back under the cover, burying her face in her pillow and breathing in deeply. She could hear Shinji changing in the background, and she was surprised that he wasn't commenting on how she should have been watching him to make sure he didn't "mess anything up", which he tended to do because he thought it was 'adorable' of him to do so.

"Oh Ren," Shinji called.

"I'm not watching you change clothes, Shinji," she cut him off.

"Haha, very funny," Shinji commented. "I need you to tie this for me." Ren sat up and gave him a look that could have frightened any man out of the room, but then she let out a deep sigh and crawled across his side of the bed and got up on her knees in front of him.

"You know, you would think that you would learn to do this since you wear these so much," Ren commented, delicately tying Shinji's tie for him.

"What, and not need you to do it for me?" Shinji retorted.

"That would be the goal," Ren muttered. Once she got done she quickly eased up and gave Shinji one more kiss before she plopped back down on his side of the bed and snuggled into his pillows.

"Adorable," Shinji cooed.

"Go to school, damn it," Ren grumbled.

"Will you tutor me later on if I need it?" he asked her suggestively.

"No, in fact, I hope you fail miserably. Now go!"

"Fine." Shinji walked to the door of the room, but told her one more thing before he left: "I love you, cougar."

"And I love you, too, soon to be failing student."

* * *

><p>Things were on high alert in the Vaizard warehouse. A week ago, they had been milling about their usual business of training and not doing too much else otherwise, when Kisuke had decided to call them up. Apparently, he had found this kid, and that statement itself was enough to let Ren know that something big was up. This kid, Ichigo Kurosaki to be more specific, had been given a Shinigami's powers, or had taken them (the details were a little fuzzy, really, because it was a complicated situation), and when Soul Society wanted the Shinigami that had given him her powers back, he had obviously had a disagreement with whoever had come to get her and ended up losing his powers and almost his life.<p>

Being the ever so helpful sort that he is, Kisuke decided to help the kid save his friend. That was when Kisuke had dropped one of the bombshells on them: he had apparently helped the kid get his Shinigami powers back, but as it turned out, there may have been a small situation with a Hollow in the process, and Kisuke was now under the impression that Ichigo Kurosaki was in fact a Vaizard just like them. Hiyori didn't take too well to his assumption, obviously, and claimed that she would believe it when she saw it, a statement which everybody ignored so they could finish hearing what Kisuke had to say, because he was nowhere near done.

He had sent Ichigo into Soul Society after he got his powers back, and the kid had ended up sending a whole shit-fest back instead of just being a normal person and sending a postcard or something. This is the point in Kisuke's story that the Vaizards got real interested in. Kisuke, in a very not-so-straightforward manner, explained that he had put the Shinigami that had given her powers to Ichigo (whose name was Rukia Kuchiki, although Ren was the only one who picked up on her name) into a gigai that might have just contained the Hōgyoku, the disastrous little object that had caused them loads of problems already. And who else would stumble upon that little object than Sōsuke Aizen himself, who also separated it from the gigai, and escaped from Soul Society with his little posse.

Ren was probably the only one who felt a little bit of relief at the end of Kisuke's story. With Aizen taking the Hōgyoku and explaining some parts of his betrayal, Kisuke and Tessai were pretty much off the hook; now granted Kisuke did have some sort of business relationship with Soul Society going on, he was no longer considered a guilty man. As for the Vaizards, however, they would still have to watch their backs. It was obvious that they hadn't exactly agreed for Aizen to turn them into what they were, but whether they did it voluntarily or not, they still had Hollow-like abilities. There was no telling how the Shinigami would react to them, so they decided to stay hidden until it was absolutely necessary for them to show themselves, which would be sooner than they had expected.

Aizen had fled to Hueco Mundo, bringing Gin and Tōsen with him, and he was now preparing an army of Arrancar, which were Hollows with the abilities of Soul Reapers. They didn't know exactly what Aizen was planning, or when he would decide to show his face again, but they knew it would be soon, and whenever he did show up, he wasn't going to just have the Gotei 13 to deal with. The Vaizards were going to be there to greet him, as well, and whether he wanted it or not, he was going to get a war.

They had been training for nearly a century, but the Vaizards were still going to have to make a ton of preparations for this battle. And the first thing that they were going to have to do was train Ichigo Kurosaki to control his inner Hollow. That kid was something special; his abilities and how he came about them were unheard of. He was going to be a key factor in the war, not only because of his strength in battle, but also because he hadn't seen Aizen's Shikai. Kyōka Suigetsu, the zanpakutō that had been used to deceive them all; once you had seen it for the first time, you were in its grasps for good, and Ichigo was one of the few who had been fortunate enough to avoid meeting this blade's Shikai.

Ren couldn't quite comprehend the plan that they had for this kid. They apparently wanted him to seek them out, instead of just doing the easy thing by being direct with him. She also couldn't understand why Shinji had to be the one to convince Ichigo, either. Sure, he probably had more finesse than the majority of the rest of the Vaizards, but how long would that finesse last him in a HIGH SCHOOL, a building full of HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS? Ren loved her husband to death, but dealing with teenagers was not his greatest talent, especially when it came to the females. The poor boy couldn't even give an innocent compliment to a girl; he always ended up saying that they were his first love or something, and whether Ren was around to hear it or not, he always, without a doubt, begged her to forgive him, claiming that she was in fact his first love and not any of those other 'skanks', as he put it. And the thing was, Ren didn't care what he said to them! She knew the truth, because at the end of the day, he was coming home to her, not anyone else! And the sad part was, she had tried telling him that, but he didn't listen! She knew that the man was a smooth little player by heart, and she also knew that he loved her more than life itself, so she wasn't worried about it! But did he listen to that? Of course he didn't, and even though there were no actions to follow his compliments, he still felt awful about the whole thing, and all Ren could do at this point was laugh at him. Some things would never change, and she wouldn't change them for the world anyways.

* * *

><p>"Are you lost without him, Ren?" Lisa cooed.<p>

"Who?" Ren asked her, looking up from the manga that she had been reading. Her abrupt reply had caused a few of the other Vaizards to snicker, but Lisa would not be deterred.

"You know who," Lisa suggested, elongating the statement for added effect. Ren looked over at Rose, someone that she had grown rather attached to over the years just because he was so laid back, and she knew that he'd be able to back her up against Lisa's new assault.

"Am I missing something here, Rose?" she asked him, and the oblivious look in her eyes just made him chuckle.

"You probably are, Ren-chan," he shrugged.

"I'm talking about your husband, Ren, you know, the one you had to send to **high school** this morning?" Lisa reminded her.

"Oh, him? Why would I be lost without him right now? He'll be back in another hour or so," Ren replied, looking back down at her manga and starting to read it again.

"Sure, that's what you say, but I'm sure you're dying on the inside," Lisa commented.

"Shouldn't you be looking at pictures of half-naked women, or something?" Ren asked her.

"I am," Lisa informed her.

"Then why do find it necessary to aggravate Ren and the rest of us when you should already be preoccupied?" Kensei berated her.

"I like to double task," Lisa mused.

"Sure you do, pervert," Kensei mumbled.

"I am not a pervert!" Lisa shouted.

"Haven't we heard this before?" Rose wondered out loud.

"Plenty of times," Ren commented.

"Mhm," Love agreed.

"Forget this. I'm going to go see what's taking the asshole so long," Hiyori scoffed, stomping her way out of the warehouse.

"Be careful," Hachigen called to her. She merely let out a grunt as she exited the building.

"What's wrong with Hiyori-chan?" Mashiro asked.

"She's just antsy…And impatient," Ren told her.

"So she's not worried about Shinji?" Mashiro innocently asked.

"Why the hell would she be worried about him? If anyone should be worried, it's Ren," Kensei pointed out.

"And why should I be worried?" Ren incredulously asked him.

"He's your husband," Kensei pointed out.

"And a grown ass man. If he can't figure his way around a high school, then we've got some serious issues around here," Ren commented.

"You're really not worried?" Rose asked her.

"Nope," she stated.

"Not even with all those girls there?" Lisa challenged.

"I don't think he wants to be castrated, so no, I'm not worried about those girls," Ren told her.

"Ouch. That word is just painful to even hear," Love commented.

"Tch, he's too whipped to try anything with another girl," Kensei scoffed.

"And that's a bad thing?" Ren asked him.

"Whipped?" Mashiro repeated. Everyone just stared at her for a moment, but she was just as oblivious as ever.

"Ha! Have fun with that, Kensei-baka! I'm going to go get us some food to cook tonight!" Ren laughed, closing her manga novel and handing it over to Rose.

"Oh, I think I've read that one! Is that the one with-" Love started.

"Stop! Don't spoil anything for me," Rose berated him, causing Ren to snicker a little.

"Like he does every time?" Lisa commented.

"I do not," Love countered, trying to defend himself.

"Yes you do," Ren mumbled, making her way out of the warehouse.

"Since when?' she heard Love demand. She could only chuckle to herself as she walked down the road. Things may have been a little quieter without Shinji there, but they weren't any more peaceful.

* * *

><p>Well, this was interesting. Ren had gotten the food just like she intended to, but on her way back, she just so happened to stumble across a certain teenager, namely, Ichigo Kurosaki. The poor kid looked a little lost, not physically, but mentally, like he couldn't quite wrap his head around something. If she had to take a guess, she would say that it was probably Shinji's fault. Sometimes the man was too blunt, but at other times, he wasn't blunt or straightforward enough, and that was when things got confusing. Plus, he had an uncanny ability to want to mess with the wrong people, like Hiyori, for example. Ren had to make a decision: get involved in Shinji's mission, or just leave everything to Shinji…There really was no contest between the two choices.<p>

"Oh!" Ren yipped, pretending to trip and drop her grocery bags, and she just so happened to be right in front of Ichigo as she did it.

"Are you alright?" he asked her, hurrying over to the spot that she had fallen.

"Oh, yeah, silly me just tripped, that's all," Ren assured him, taking his outstretched hand so he could help her up. As soon as she was back on her feet, Ichigo immediately knelt down and started to pick up her groceries.

"Thank you, Ichigo! I'm glad some people still have manners around here," Ren commented.

"It's no prob- what did you say?" he asked her, immediately stopping what he was doing.

"Sorry, you don't know me, but I know you. I believe you met one of my comrades earlier today," Ren told him.

"You mean, Hirako?" Ichigo suspiciously asked her.

"Yeah. He was an ass, wasn't he?" Ren laughed. "Yes, I'm a Vaizard. I actually did not plan this, but when I saw you, I figured that I should probably apologize for that idiot."

"Oh," Ichigo muttered, continuing to pick up the fallen groceries.

"Don't let him give you the wrong idea about us, Ichigo. We really aren't that bad," Ren assured him. He stood up as he finally finished picking up her groceries, and he handed her bags back to her, which she graciously took from him.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't need you guys," Ichigo told her.

"I figured you'd say that. But, if you ever change your mind, we'll be here. Take care of yourself, alright?" Ren replied.

"Sure," Ichigo muttered.

"And cheer up! Thanks for picking up my groceries!" Ren added, leaning on her tiptoes so she could reach up and give a small, innocent kiss on the cheek. She grinned as she saw the blush cut across, and with one last wave she went on her way.

"I'm Ren, by the way!" she called back. She didn't know what Shinji had said to the kid, but Ren was sure that he didn't do it very pleasantly. She didn't want Ichigo to get the wrong idea about the Vaizards, and hopefully she had convinced him that they weren't too bad. She figured that she had at least convinced him that she wasn't so bad, and she would be sure to tell Shinji about it later…

_**Author's Note: That wasn't too awful of a wait for you guys, was it? I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you haven't already, please follow, favorite, or review! And if you have some extra time, feel free to check out my other stories! Anyways, thank you to smackie, LITTLE RED FOXX, swimmingintears, followtheblackstar, shikaboo, imagination-the drug, Friggatriskaidekaphobia, DormantInTheBloodOfMyEnemies, Jane of Arc, and Kyōka kumo for all of the love! Thank you and enjoy!**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Author's Note: I have made a mistake, my dear readers. I was under the impression that Kisuke had been a captain for one hundred years, but, as I was doing some research the other day, I found out that he was only captain for ten years…Where the mix up happened, I have no clue, but I did go back and fix my time skips in chapters five and six. Overall, Ren was a lieutenant for sixty years instead of one hundred, and only five years pass between the two chapters instead of fifty. It doesn't really affect anything, but I'm sure some people were reading this story and cursing me like 'Damn it, woman, it was ten years, not one hundred!', so I fixed it. Plus, it bothered me, too. Anyways, enjoy! Oh, and while we're at it, I might as well throw in a disclaimer, because I most certainly do not own Bleach or any of its characters, just my little Ren-chan!**_

Chapter Ten- On The Same Level

"What do you mean she's been gone a while? How long are we talking about here?"

Ren could only shake her head. Obviously, Shinji had returned to the warehouse before she had been able to make it back, and apparently, she had been gone a little longer than she had intended. He was demanding answers from their fellow Vaizards as to where she had gone, how long she had been gone, and he demanded to know why no one went with her. It was sweet to know that he worried about her so much, but Ren decided that she would give her fellow Vaizards a break and she quietly jumped up a few floors to where she was on the same level as they were. Once the others saw her, she held her finger to her mouth to hush them, and she quietly snuck up behind her worried husband.

"What if she doesn't come back? What if she's lost? What if she gets attacked or kidnapped?" Shinji ranted, thinking of all the worst scenarios that could have happened to his poor wife. He knew, in the bottom of his heart, that something was wrong, that something was happening to his Ren, and here he was with no clue as where in the world she was!

"What if she's right behind you?" Ren whispered right by his ear. She scared the life out of that poor man; the Vaizards had never heard him scream that loud, not even when Hiyori was beating him, and he jumped at least a foot off the ground. Ren had to bite her lips to keep from laughing at him, just like the other Vaizards.

"Oh, Ren!" Shinji cried, falling down to his knees and wrapping his arms around her legs. He buried his face into her stomach, and at that point, Kensei walked over and took the grocery bags from Ren, preventing them from any further harm. Ren used her newly freed hands to gently pat Shinji on the top of his head because goodness knows he was going to need all the reassurance from her he could get.

"How was school, Shinji?" Ren asked her husband, still trying to fight off her laughter.

"I'm so sorry, Ren! Those skanks meant nothing to me, I swear! You re my first and only love, so please don't leave me!" Shinji begged. Ren just patted him on the head again.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she assured him. "Although, I did run into this lovely stranger on the way back here…"

"I'll fucking kill him!" Shinji shouted, shooting up from where he had been kneeling.

"I hope you don't. It'd be a real shame," Ren commented, but once she looked at the shocked faces of the other Vaizards, she couldn't help in any longer: she busted out laughing, and she laughed so hard that her sides started hurting. She was going to have to be this devious more often, because the reactions that she was getting from her comrades were priceless.

"Your faces!" Ren gasped.

"So who is this mysterious stranger, Ren?" Lisa asked her, making Ren just laugh even more.

"It's not funny! Who the hell is he so I can go kill him!" Shinji demanded.

"Oh, me," Ren breathed. "That was too good."

"Ren," Shinji whined.

"I ran into Ichigo, Shinji, damn," Ren chuckled, and her admission caused Rose, Love, and Lisa to burst into laughter along with her.

"You ran into that dick face?" Hiyori asked her.

"Oh, my, that was colorful, Hiyori," Ren snickered. "Yes, I did. I 'accidently' tripped and dropped the groceries, but he was gentlemanly enough to retrieve them for me."

"That little bastard," Shinji scoffed.

"Easy, tiger," Ren told him, laying her hand on his shoulder. "No need to get violent."

"What did you tell him?" Shinji asked her.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Ren muttered, with a sly grin on her face.

"Yes I would!" Shinji whined. "You know what? I'll go ask him."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Kensei asked him.

"I think I need to show Kurosaki just what he's dealing with," Shinji told him, jumping down to the ground floor.

"Have fun!" Ren called. "Dinner will be ready when you get back!"

"What have you done?" Love laughed.

"I'm just giving them a little push," Ren commented. "Who's hungry?"

* * *

><p>"My my! You've outdone yourself again, Ren-chan!" Rose exclaimed.<p>

"Why thank you," Ren replied. They were all down in the underground training room, because it was not only their training area, but also their kitchen. Ren had been preparing a humongous dinner for them all, and she was just now putting the finishing touches on everything. The rest of the Vaizards were practically drooling, and they could not wait to dig into the delicious meal that was sitting before them.

"And you finished just in time, too! I believe your husband has just entered the building!" Love announced.

"Damn I'm good," Ren muttered.

"You kissed him?!" Shinji shouted, jumping down the stairs into the training room.

"Oh, shit," Lisa gawked. The reactions to his statement were just too funny: Lisa was obviously gawking, Rose and Love's jaws hit the floor, Hiyori and Kensei seemed to choke on the very air they were trying to breathe, and Mashiro and Hachi both even looked shocked at Shinji's statement. A large grin crossed Ren's face and she marked this one down as yet another victory for her; a girl has got to have her fun, and Ren found that one thing that never failed to entertain her was messing with her fellow Vaizards, especially Shinji.

"On the cheek," Ren practically sang. "And it was just to show him how thankful I was that he picked up the groceries."

"Pfft, boring," Lisa scoffed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Was that not juicy enough for you? Should I have gotten down and dirty with him right there on the middle of the sidewalk?" Ren asked her.

"That would have been better," Lisa agreed.

"You're sick," Kensei commented.

"My ears!" Hiyori shouted.

"Oh hush," Ren told her.

"W-why, Ren? Was it because of all those girls? I swear I lied to them!" Shinji cried, falling to his knees again and holding Ren close to him…yet again.

"I know," Ren reminded him. "We do this every time, Shinji."

"Then why?" he sniveled.

"It was an innocent kiss on the cheek, Shinji. It's not like I'm going to bear his love-child now," Ren assured him.

"Shut up!" Hiyori screamed.

"Promise?" Shinji asked her, giving her the most innocent puppy eyes that he could muster.

"I swear," Ren assured him. "Besides, it helped you along with your 'agenda', didn't it?"

"It did," Shinji agreed, composing himself and standing back up. "He didn't know what to do when I put my mask on."

"See? I helped," Ren declared.

"I'm confused," Mashiro stated.

"You would be," Kensei scoffed.

"Shut up, Kensei-baka!" Mashiro yelled.

"Hey, hey, no fighting you two! It's time to eat!" Ren scolded them.

"I'm not sure I can eat after hearing all that," Hiyori spat.

"You've heard worse," Love pointed out, causing Hiyori to think for a moment.

"I have," Hiyori admitted, a shiver running down her spine.

"No more chit chat! Let's eat!" Shinji announced.

"Man, one day there and you're already acting like a pushy teenager," Ren commented.

"I am not!" Shinji bellowed, and looking very offended as he did it.

"Food, damn it, food!" Kensei barked.

"Now who's acting like a pushy teenager," Shinji scoffed.

"Come on guys, just drop it for now," Rose told them.

But they didn't. They argued for at least five more minutes before they finally stopped to eat. They were a chaotic bunch, yet Ren couldn't help but smile when she saw them interact together. They were all a little family now, and hopefully, they would be adding to their family soon. Ichigo may not have known it yet, but he was going to need them. He had the potential to be an amazing Vaizard; he just had to realize that he couldn't do this all by himself first.

* * *

><p>"I still can't believe you fucked your mission up," Hiyori stated, well, pouted really. The day after Ren had ran into Ichigo, Shinji had gone back to Ichigo's high school, only to have the teen give him quite the beheading for what had happened the night before. Shinji didn't really care what the kid said to him, but at that point, he saw just how hard-headed that Ichigo was, and he gave up on trying to convince him to join the Vaizards. And of course, Hiyori was riding his ass for it.<p>

"If he doesn't want to die or hurt anyone that he cares about, he'll find us," Shinji nonchalantly told her.

"I thought you didn't even want the kid here, Hiyori," Ren commented.

"Tch! It's got nothing to do with the kid!" Hiyori shouted.

"Then what's the problem?" Lisa asked her.

"The problem is that Baldy here messed up on his mission!" Hiyori told her.

"But his mission was to get Ichigo to come here," Rose observed.

"So?! Baldy screwed up! I knew I should have gone myself!" Hiyori declared.

"You wouldn't have lasted an hour near all those people," Love pointed out.

"Hell, you were only around Ichigo's friends for five minutes before you wanted to kill them!" Shinji reminded her.

"Did I ask you, dick face?" Hiyori screamed, reaching down to grab one of her sandals.

"Here we go," Ren breathed.

"No, not this time!" Shinji shouted, jumping up from his spot on the couch and attempting to run away. Hiyori, however, seemed to read his mind, and she was on him in a second. Ren cringed as Hiyori's sandal slammed down against her husband's head, but, he should have known better than to push Hiyori's buttons, so in Ren's mind, he brought this on himself.

"Stupid, stupid, Baldy!" Hiyori shouted as she continuously hit poor Shinji over and over again. At the rate she was going, she might actually hurt him this time.

"Hiyori, I think he's had enough," Love commented.

"He's had enough when I say he's had enough!" Hiyori yelled.

"Uh, Ren, I think he needs your help," Rose told her, but she wasn't paying any attention to him, or any of them for that matter. She had her head turned away from the violent scene, and she was trying to focus on something, but with all of Hiyori and Shinji's yelling, she couldn't quite do that.

"Shut up!" Ren yelled, and the room went silent. Everyone looked at her in shock for a moment before they saw the urgent look in her eyes.

"Arrancar," Ren muttered.

"Arrancar? This soon?" Kensei questioned. Kisuke had warned them about these 'advanced' Hollows. They had been normal Hollows once, but they had broken their masks to obtain more power. Apparently, Aizen could also use the Hōgyoku to transform them into their more powerful forms, as well, but they certainly hadn't been expecting the creatures to show up this early in the game.

"It seems like Ichigo is going after them," Shinji commented.

"What do we do?" Mashiro asked.

"Stay here. I'm going to go take a peek at these Arrancar," Ren told them.

"You sure that's really safe?" Lisa asked her.

"It'll be fine. I'm the Queen of Thieves, remember? They won't even know I was there."

* * *

><p><em>"We're a little late, aren't we?" <em>Hito commented.

_"Not the time, Hito,"_ Kiri warned him.

"Son of a bitch," Ren quietly scoffed. Hito, in all his momentary wisdom, was right for once: they were in fact too late. There were two of them; one of them was extremely pale with black hair and green lines running down his face from both of his eyes, and his counterpart was much larger than he was with darker skin and his hair was in a ponytail. Ren had used her shikai to hide in the shadows of some nearby trees, but by the time that she had reached the area where the Arrancar were, they were already surrounded by the dead bodies of innocent humans.

"How could they have killed so many so fast?" Ren asked herself.

_"These boys are stronger than we imagined,"_ Kiri commented.

_"You know, the last time we felt reiatsu this strong, some real bad shit happened," _Hito pointed out. _"Am I the only one ready to turn around and get the hell out of here?"_

_ "Look at big, bad, tough Hito, over here being a little bitch," _Kiri snickered.

_ "I'm not scared for me! I'd hate for poor little Ren here to get her ass kicked by these two, so I am merely trying to warn her,"_ Hito explained.

_"Bullshit," _Kiri challenged, not believing her partner's lie for a second.

"You two are no help," Ren told them.

_"I am being helpful!" _Hito yelled. _"I'm telling you to run the fuck away before something bad happens!"_

"Alright, Mr. Observational, take a look around: something bad has already happened!" Ren scolded him.

_"To them, not to you!" _ Hito replied.

_"That's actually a good point,"_ Kiri agreed.

"I hate you both," Ren grumbled. "When we get home, I'm going to lavish the hell out of Shinji with some good ole fashioned romance, and I'm going to make you two watch."

_"You're fucking sick," _Hito gagged.

_"I agree,"_ Kiri added.

"Then shut the hell up," Ren warned them. "It looks like someone out there is still alive."

_"I'd hate to be her,"_ Kiri breathed.

Out of the whole crowd of bodies, only one started to move. It was a young girl, probably about Ichigo's age, and the poor thing looked so dazed and confused, until she saw the Arrancar, and then she became terrified as well.

"He literally sucked their souls out and ate them," Ren commented, listening in to the conversation that the two Arrancar were having. The girl had been the only one able to resist the technique, and now that Ren actually thought about it, the girl did have a mild amount of spiritual pressure, but it was probably only enough to let her see the Arrancar and not fight them.

_"Are you gonna let her die?"_ Hito questioned.

_"She can't afford to be seen," _Kiri told him.

_"Why not?" _Hito wondered.

"I only came here to observe, not to interfere," Ren explained. "Besides, someone is coming."

And it was more than one someone at that. There were two of them, in fact, two teenagers, with significantly higher reiatsus than the average human. She had no clue who the guy was, but the girl on the other hand…She was pretty, with burnt orange hair, and huge boobs…Shinji had met this girl before, and he had taken the time to tell Ren about her in full detail. Sadly, Ren couldn't quite recall what her name was. It was Ori-something, but that was as far as Ren could remember…On the bright side of all this, Ren had a new idea on how she could mess with her husband and it came in the form of this gorgeous teenage girl, that was, if she didn't die first.

The two teens were able to save the girl, who Ren could only assume was their classmate or something, but as the boy started to fight the larger Arrancar, it was plainly obvious that he was no match for the monstrous being. And the boy probably realized that, too, about the time that the Arrancar had taken his arm off. The poor kid hadn't lasted any time at all, and Ren doubted that the girl would do any better.

_"This won't end well,"_ Kiri predicted.

"No shit?" Ren sarcastically asked her. "I thought that Hito was supposed to be the one that pointed out the obvious."

_"Bitch,"_ Hito spat.

_"Is she…healing his arm?" _ Kiri wondered.

"Holy shit," Ren muttered. Whoever the girl was, she had summoned up some kind of force field around her companion, and somehow, by some miracle, she was making his arm regenerate. Ren was, to put it lightly, baffled. It would make sense if a Shinigami had pulled out something like this, but a human?

"Now that is a technique that I have not seen before," Ren commented. It wasn't a Kido technique, but it looked like something that was close to it. However, before Ren could make any more observations, the huge Arrancar that had been causing all of the chaos so far decided to attack the innocent girl. She tried to summon some kind of projectile to launch at him, but the Arrancar destroyed that with ease, and he also broke through her shield as easily as if it was glass. He only hit the teenager once, but that one hit was enough to do a nice amount of damage to her.

_"She's got heart,"_ Hito commented.

"She needs to stay down," Ren pointed out as the teenager started to stand up again.

_"These Arrancar…are monsters," _Kiri observed.

"These kids aren't trained nearly enough to even try to take these guys on," Ren commented. "We are much more prepared, but I'm still not sure it's enough."

_"And this is just one of them,"_ Kiri reminded her.

"I know…What's he doing over there?" Ren wondered, referring to the smaller Arrancar.

_"That other kid is here," _Hito announced, and right on cue, Ichigo popped out of nowhere. At least he had diverted the Arrancar's attention away from the other two injured teens, but now, he actually had to fight the Arrancar himself.

"I think…that this is a set up," Ren announced.

_"What do you mean?"_ Kiri asked her.

"These Arrancar…Notice how they aren't trying to do anything in specific? They aren't trying to destroy anything in particular or kill any specific person. They're just here," Ren explained.

_"Why do you think that is?" _ Hito asked her.

"I think that Aizen just sent them here to mess with us," Ren admitted. "I mean, seriously, they are not pursuing any explicit mission! They're just there, in that one space, and they're definitely causing terror over there, but that's the only place. I think that Aizen is sending a warning, to us, Soul Society, everybody."

_"And where does that leave the pale one?" _Kiri wondered.

"I think he's got the same agenda that we have: observe," Ren told her.

_"Observe what?" _Hito asked; he was confused by the whole situation, and his two female counterparts weren't too far from being in the same situation; these Arrancar were pure anomalies to them.

"Now that, I do not know," Ren answered. "And that concerns me."

Ichigo was doing alright in his fight at first, he even cut the Arrancar's arm off to pay him back for ripping off his friend's arm, but suddenly, in the middle of everything, he just stopped. He went from putting up a good fight to having his ass kicked in a split second, and it was like the boy just lost it. He just let himself get beat up, like his body was frozen and he just couldn't make himself move anymore.

"What the hell is he doing?" Ren seethed. "He's going to get himself killed!"

_"You can't go out there, Ren," _Kiri reminded her.

_"She may have to to save this damn fool!" _Hito pointed out.

"Did he stop because of his Hollow?" Ren wondered. "If it's that damn bad, why won't he come to us already?"

_"He's going to kill him, Ren!"_ Hito shouted.

"They're almost here," Ren assured him.

_"And you're just going to let him get the shit beat out of him until they get here?" _Hito demanded, becoming more and more irate by the second.

"Maybe it'll knock some sense into him," Ren suggested. "Because, as you can see, he is running a little low on it."

_"I suppose that could work,"_ Hito conceded.

"Something has to," Ren breathed. "If he doesn't start shaping up, our chances of actually beating Aizen are just going to keep getting lower."

_"Huh, I didn't know that Yoruichi was back,"_ Hito commented.

"I just talked to her the other day!" Ren incredulously pointed out.

_"Really? Were you aware of this Kiri?"_ Hito asked his partner.

_"Of course I'm aware of it. I talked to you about it!" _Kiri informed him.

_"Did you?" _Hito wondered.

"He's seriously like this all the time?" Ren commented.

_"Yes, yes he," _Kiri conceded, and her tone was so sour that Ren could practically taste it.

"I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt," Ren told her.

_"Don't…Just don't do that,"_ Kiri warned her.

"I see," Ren replied. "I will definitely keep that in mind."

_"Isn't there a fight doing on here that we should be watching?" _Hito piped in.

"Pfft, Kisuke and Yoruichi have got this," Ren scoffed. And of course they did. With breathtaking timing and even more awe-inspiring techniques and tricks, Yoruichi and Kisuke did in fact have the situation under control in no time. The Arrancar couldn't even hit the two, which frustrated him to no end, and he went from winning his battle to losing it in a split second.

If Ren had to pick a highlight for the evening, if she just had to pick one thing that stood out to her the most, it would have to have been when Kisuke used Benehime. Ever since Ren had met the man well over a century, she had had a strange fascination with his zanpakutō and its abilities, but, even back in the day when he wasn't nearly as straightforward or as sure of himself as he was today, Ren couldn't convince him to show her some more of his zanpakutōs techniques. She had a feeling that Yoruichi may have had a hand in that, especially considering that her former captain loved to mess with her as often as she could.

"Well, this was kind of a bust, huh?" Ren muttered. Not too shortly after Kisuke and Yoruichi arrived and the larger Arrancar started losing again, the pale one pulled him out of the battle, opened a Garganta, and left the Human World, leaving Kisuke and Yoruichi with clean-up duty. Once the Arrancar had left, Ren felt that it was safe for her to finally drop her shikai and come out of the shadows. She let off just enough of her reiatsu to let Kisuke and Yoruichi know that she had been there, but since the teenagers were still there, she didn't go out to talk to them. At this point, they really didn't even need to talk to each other to know that they were all thinking the same thing: this was only the beginning. The Arrancar were much stronger than they had anticipated, and they were showing up in the Human World much sooner than they had planned. Plus, to top everything off, hard-headed Ichigo still hadn't gotten the picture.

* * *

><p>It was fairly late when Ren finally got back to the Vaizards' warehouse. Everyone had split up for the night and gone to their perspective rooms, although very few of them had actually gone to sleep by that point. It was a rainy and dreary night anyways, so Ren would wait to give them the unpleasant news until the morning. She quietly made her way through the warehouse, trying her best not to alert any of her comrades as she made her way to the room that she shared with her dearest husband.<p>

_"Ren, dear, about earlier,"_ Hito started.

_"Please don't make me suffer for what this fool did," _Kiri begged.

_"You agreed with me!" _Hito reminded.

"Stop the arguing you guys. I'm tired, so I doubt there will be any of that tonight, especially with all the tension that these Arrancar brought with them. Besides, I'm not depraved enough to actually want to make you guys watch that," Ren assured them.

_"Thank you,"_ Kiri breathed.

"Don't mention it. Now please, keep it quiet in there," Ren requested.

_"You got it, chief,"_ Hito ensured her, and her zanpakutō were finally silent as Ren eased the door to her and Shinji's room open. It wasn't too dark in the room, and Ren couldn't help the smile that she got when she saw that Shinji was still wide awake and waiting for her.

"You are so mean," Shinji told her.

"And why is that?" she asked him, kicking her shoes off in the corner of the room.

"You know I can't sleep without you here," he reminded her.

"Aw, so you weren't just waiting up to make sure that I made it back alright?" Ren teased, taking her two tanto blades from where she had them fastened horizontally across her lower back and gently placing them on the nightstand that was next her side of the bed.

"That may have been an ulterior motive of mine," Shinji admitted as he watched his wife shimmy out of her skirt and unfasten her top before she pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. He had to admit, even after all the years he had known her, she was still the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. Life had thrown some pretty wicked curveballs at him recently, but every time that he was near Ren, he felt like the luckiest man in the Human World, Soul Society, and in Hueco Mundo.

"You didn't have to, you know," Ren reminded him, sitting down beside him and propping her back on the headboard in the process.

"Of course I did," Shinji disagreed. "There's no way I could have gone to sleep knowing that you were out there with those things and possibly in danger."

Ren ran her fingers through Shinji's hair as he laid his head against her stomach. They were silent for a moment, just savoring the peace of the dark room around them and listening to the rain as it pattered against the roof. Shinji, however, was being overly quiet, which concerned Ren. She looked down at him, only to see that he was staring aimlessly off into space with a lost look in his eyes.

"Shinji?" she called.

"Hm?" he replied.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, and the only response that she got was silence.

"Shinji," Ren coaxed.

"I'm just…tired, Ren," he told her.

"Tired of what, Shinji?"

"I'm tired of things being like this, of us living in hiding. This isn't what I promised you, Ren. I promised that I'd always be there for you, take care of you when you needed me to, give you the family that you've always wanted, but here we are, chomping at the bit for the possibility of revenge but still just hiding here. This isn't the life we wanted, Ren."

"No, but it's the one we got, and I'd like to think that we're making the best out of it."

"It's not too hard to do that, considering it can't get much worse."

"It could be so much worse, Shinji."

"How?"

"I could've lost you, all those years ago when everything started, and I don't think that I could have lived with that, Shinji. I couldn't do any of this without you."

"I guess you're right: things would be so much worse of I didn't have you with me."

"Told you so."

Ren just let a few moments of silence pass as she continued to run her hand through Shinji's hair. She should have figured that something like this would come up after the Arrancar arrived. On quiet and uneventful days, when they didn't have to worry about Aizen or even Hollows for that matter, it was almost like they had a normal life. They didn't have to worry about anything on those days, except for maybe who would go out for food, but now that all of their skeletons had come screaming out of the closet, they had everything to worry about. It pained Ren to see her husband like this, but really and truly, there wasn't much that she could do about it. The one thing that she would never forgive Aizen for was the desperation that he had put them in, because obviously, it was starting to take a toll on them.

"I know you're tired, Shinji. You've been tired for a long time, it just didn't hit you until our past came crawling out of its grave. I wish there was something that I could do for you, that I could do something to give you the rest that you deserve, but I don't think you'll be able to get that until all of this is over," Ren told him. "I feel so damn useless sometimes because I can't give you that comfort."

Before he said anything to her, Shinji quickly sat up and pulled Ren closer to him, smashing his lips against hers and taking her breath away in the process.

"I love you, Ren, more than anything and you know that. Don't ever feel useless, ya hear me? 'Cuz you're far from it. Hell, you've kept me sane through all of this, and that has to prove something, right?" Shinji told her.

"Well, it's only fair trade, I mean, you keep me sane and I'll keep you sane," Ren replied. "Maybe this'll all be over soon so we can all get the rest and peace of mind that we need."

"I hope so," Shinji breathed. "I swear, Ren, I will give you the life I promised you."

"I know you will, Shinji. I never doubted that you would," Ren assured him.

"Well, I haven't exactly been timely with the whole thing," he pointed out.

"Eh, I'm a patient girl. Besides, the wait will make it better, right?" Ren chuckled. "Aright, I think we've had enough serious talk for one night. Let's go to sleep and leave this day behind us, eh?"

"Sounds good to me," Shinji agreed.

"Good. As we've already established, I love you, Shinji. Sweet dreams."

"I love you, too, Ren. I already know what kind of dreams you'll be having."

"Haha, you're a comedian. Now, go to sleep, Captain Hirako."

As Ren scooted down on the bed she could finally lie down for the night, Shinji followed her lead, moving down just enough to where he could lay his head back down on her stomach. Ren started to run her fingers his hair again, but it wasn't long before hands started to slow down, and eventually, they stopped altogether as sleep finally found her. Shinji, however, was still wide awake and his mind was racing. He usually found comfort when he laid on Ren like this, but on nights like these when he couldn't stop thinking about everything that had gone wrong over the years, he only felt guilt in her embrace. He so badly wished that they had a normal life, and some times, he was almost willing to give up on revenge just so he could try to give her that. But he knew that as long as Aizen was around, that it wouldn't be possible for them to have a normal life; Aizen would never leave them alone, and that was one of the many reasons why Shinji knew that he had to take that bastard down. As he lay there with the side of his face against Ren's abdomen, he wished that he could have felt something there, some small inkling of new life. He wanted to start their family so badly, but with the possibility of war brewing, it was definitely not the time for that. There was no guarantee that they would even make it through any of this, so how could they bring a child into such an uncertain and unstable world with no normality to it? They couldn't, at least not until Aizen was out of the picture.

_**Author's Note: Longest chapter for Queen of Thieves yet! I did make you guys wait awhile for it, though, so it's only fair! A big thank you to duvainel89, Matsuri Scarlett, Rei- chan the Shinigami, DinoPower, and Fanisa for the favorites, follows, and reviews! I hope you enjoyed, and I'll try not to take too long in putting the next chapter out!**_


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven-Waiting

_ Yoruichi was on a mission. Usually, that would have been an extremely frightening thing, but this time, her mission was relatively simple and innocent. Today, she was going to introduce two of her most favorite people in the world to each other: she was going to introduce Ren to Kisuke. She'd been trying to introduce them to each other for a while now, but something always came up; sometimes Kisuke was too busy, sometimes Ren was too busy, sometimes a sudden meeting got called, and sometimes Shinji snatched Ren out of the office too quickly for Yoruichi to ask her to accompany her somewhere after work. But today was going to be different. Yoruichi had checked with the Captain-Commander, and no meetings were scheduled to be called that day; now of course, an emergency meeting still had the chance to be called, but they were just going to have to take that chance. Yoruichi had also made sure to tell Kisuke to free up his schedule for that afternoon, and she had made sure that Ren did all of her work the day before, leaving them both with nothing to do. Now all Yoruichi had to do was pry Ren away from Shinji, which was definitely going to be the hardest part of her plan._

_ "Oh, Ren-chan! ~" Yoruichi sang as she opened the door to the Fifth Division captain's office. She was mildly afraid of what she would see when she opened the door, but to her surprise, both individuals were fully clothed and sitting in separate chairs, with Shinji behind his desk and Ren sitting across from him. They seemed to have been playing some sort of card game._

_ "Yes, Yoruichi?" Ren asked her, not looking away from her hand of cards. _

_ "Watch 'ya doin'?" Yoruichi cooed._

_ "Whooping Shinji's ass," Ren stated, taunting the man that was across from her._

_ "You only beat me once!" Shinji argued._

_ "And we've only played once so far," Ren pointed out. "Plus, I believe that I win again, Captain Hirako."_

_ "You have got to be kidding me," Shinji grumbled, looking at her newly revealed hand and realizing that she had in fact one this round as well. At that point, Yoruichi noticed that Shinji wasn't wearing his captain's haori._

_ "Off with it, Shinji," Ren demanded._

_ "But, Yoruichi's here," he pointed out._

_ "I don't care," Ren told him. "And since you argued, you have to pay a penalty now."_

_ "A penalty?" Shinji repeated._

_ "Yes, a penalty. Now you have to take your kosode __**and**__ shitagi off," Ren explained._

_ "Are you serious?" Shinji whined._

_ "Do ya want another penalty?" Ren challenged._

_ "No," he grumbled. With a very sour look on his face, Shinji begrudgingly slipped his black kosode and the white robe that was underneath it off of his arms and they fell to his waist. He couldn't take them completely off because he still had his obi (sash) and hakama (pants) on, but he had a very distinct feeling that that wouldn't last very long. A sudden look of realization came over Yoruichi as she realized just what kind of card game they were playing._

_ "Oh, my," Yoruichi muttered. "Aren't you afraid that your lieutenant might walk in on this, Shinji?"_

_ "No, I sent him out on a mission to Rukongai earlier," Shinji remarked._

_ "You sent him on an errand to Rukongai earlier," Ren corrected._

_ "It wasn't an errand! It was an important mission," Shinji restated, trying to defend himself._

_ "You sent him shopping for food that I can cook later," Ren pointed out._

_ "Me eating is important," Shinji told her._

_ "You sent your lieutenant grocery shopping?" Yoruichi mused._

_ "Don't even try it," Ren scoffed. "I would never fall for it with you."_

_ "Shinji, your wife is accusing me of things!" Yoruichi whined, pointing at Ren in the process._

_ "Like you weren't actually going to try," Shinji muttered. _

_ "I wasn't!" Yoruichi whined again._

_ "No matter how much you whine, you're still not believable," Ren told her, causing the said woman to huff. _

_ "You two are so mean to me," Yoruichi murmured._

_ "We're just teaching you to be a better person," Ren assured her. "You'll thank us one day."_

_ "No, I won't," Yoruichi grumbled._

_ "Do you need to be put in time out?" Shinji asked her._

_ "No," Yoruichi conceded._

_ "Good," Ren commented. "Now, why are you here?"_

_ "Uh, good question," Yoruichi muttered. She had to think about it for a moment, but she finally remembered why she had journeyed to the Fifth Division in the first place._

_ "Oh, yeah! I need to borrow you, Ren, for about an hour," Yoruichi told her. _

_ "No," Shinji quickly told her. "I just got her to myself and we have…business to take care of." _

_ "Just because you married her doesn't mean that you get her all to yourself!" Yoruichi whined. "You have to share her every once in a while!"_

_ "Yes, let's just talk about me like I'm not here," Ren muttered._

_ "You see her every day!" Shinji continued, ignoring his wife's comment._

_ "But we're working! I never get to see her afterwards anymore!" Yoruichi argued. _

_ "That is not my problem," Shinji told her._

_ "You always come and get her the very second that I let her off! How am I supposed to do anything with her if you never give me the time?" Yoruichi objected._

_ "Again, not my problem," Shinji repeated._

_ "I swear, I'm going to-!" Yoruichi started, but Ren finally stood up and cut her off._

_ "Alright, you two, that's enough," Ren started. "Shinji, she says it will only take an hour, and I'm sure you can survive without me for that short amount of time."_

_ "But we just got started," Shinji whined._

_ "We were only two games in," Ren pointed out. "And we can finish when I get back, anyways."_

_ "Fine," Shinji huffed. "But if you're not back in an hour, I'm coming after you."_

_ "I'll hold you to that," Ren replied. "Now, let's go, Yoruichi."_

_ "You've got it," Yoruichi agreed, but before she walked out the door, she quickly turned around and stuck her tongue out at Shinji._

_ "That's enough, Yoruichi," Ren muttered. "Remember, you are a grown woman."_

_ "One hour!" Shinji called out, right as Ren shut the door._

_ "You two will be the death of me," Ren breathed. _

_ "Talking to your zanpakutō again?" Yoruichi mused._

_ "No, I'm talking about my captain and the man I married," Ren told her._

_ "Aw, we aren't that bad, Ren" Yoruichi whined._

_ "Yes, yes you are," Ren disagreed. "Just lead the way to wherever it is you want to go, Yoruichi."_

_ "Okay!" Yoruichi cheered. "Actually, we're just heading to our secret lair."_

_ "Let's not be so grim, Yoruichi. It's just a hidden cave, not some sinister secret lair of doom. Although, with you there, it comes pretty close to being that."_

_ "Does not…"_

_ "Does, too."_

_ "Nuh-uh."_

_ "Uh-huh."_

_ "You're mean."_

_ "You give me a headache."_

_ "Do not."_

_ "Do, too."_

_ "Nuh-uh."_

_ "We're not doing this again, Yoruichi."_

_ "Why not?"_

_ "Because you're actually starting to give me a headache."_

_ "Heh, that'll really burst Shinji's bubble when you go back."_

_ "Well, aren't you just so coy and clever?"_

_ "I do my best! Hey, there's someone that'll really burst his bubble!"_

_ As Ren looked ahead of them, she saw that person that Yoruichi was referring to. It was Hiyori, and Ren could only guess what Yoruichi had planned for the girl._

_ "Oh, Hiyori-chan!" Yoruichi called._

_ "What?" Hiyori demanded, swinging around to find whoever had called her name._

_ "Well, what do you know?" Hiyori muttered. "If it isn't the new Mrs. Hirako. Was someone finally able to pry you away from your husband's side? I figured he wouldn't let you go for a while."_

_ "Well, if you must know, Hiyori," Ren started. "We do actually stop having sex long enough to go to work, but once we're off the clock, it's back to the good ole act of bumping uglies."_

_ "You are sick!" Hiyori screamed._

_ "Ah, newlyweds," Yoruichi chuckled. "They're like rabbits."_

_ "Stop it!" Hiyori yelled. _

_ "I mean, we just can't stop," Ren continued. "I don't think I slept at all last night. I just can't get him off of my mind, either! I mean, he's glorious, and he's just so damn b-"_

_ "What the hell is wrong with you?!" Hiyori screamed. "Shut up! The last thing that I need to hear about is that dick face's-!" The poor girl couldn't even finish her sentence, but Yoruichi sure as hell could._

_ "Dick?" Yoruichi threw in._

_ "Stop it!" Hiyori begged, clasping her hands tightly over her ears._

_ "Oh, my, what a man I married!" Ren moaned, continuing her torture on the small girl._

_ "I swear, I hate you!" Hiyori cried. _

_ "I'm surprised I still have my voice," Ren continued. "Because I was sure screaming __**all **__night."_

_ "Okay, okay," Yoruichi conceded. "That's enough."_

_ "What, is it getting too much for you to handle?" Ren teased. "Heh, I thought that a couple of times recently myself…"_

_ "Fucking stop it," Hiyori begged._

_ "Fine," Ren agreed._

_ "Anyways, Hiyori," Yoruichi began. "Shinji is all by his lonesome in his office right now, so just in case you wanted to go torment him for me…"_

_ "Really, Yoruichi? Sending Hiyori to do your dirty work?" Ren asked her._

_ "Why not?" Yoruichi replied._

_ "I don't think that I can look at him after that," Hiyori grumbled._

_ "Just try," Yoruichi encouraged her. "Maybe you can beat him enough to get the images out of your head."_

_ "You know what? I'll try that," Hiyori stated, and she started to march her way to the Fifth Division, where the unsuspecting Shinji was about to receive yet another beating._

_ "You are so mean," Ren commented, referring to her captain, who looked ever so content with herself._

_ "He started it," Yoruichi snickered, the triumphant grin never leaving her face._

_ "Let's just go," Ren breathed, starting to walk away again. It was quiet for a moment as Yoruichi reveled in her newly acquired triumph, but then she started thinking about some of the things that Ren had said earlier._

_ "So, Ren," Yoruichi cooed._

_ "What now?" Ren breathed._

_ "Is he, uh…really that good?" Yoruichi wondered._

_ "I wasn't lying earlier, no," Ren told her._

_ "Wow," Yoruichi commented. "I bet you two had a lovely wedding night, then."_

_ "He certainly didn't disappoint," Ren agreed. "It's not like I didn't make the poor boy wait long enough for it."_

_ "Aw!" Yoruichi squealed. "You mean my dirty little Ren-chan was a virgin until her wedding night?"_

_ "This conversation has gone too far," Ren muttered, picking up her pace and leaving Yoruichi behind her._

_ "But wait," Yoruichi called, speeding up her own pace so she could catch up to her lieutenant. "I thought you guys dated for twenty years before he even proposed…Ren, how could you make that poor man wait for so long?"_

_ "Too far," Ren repeated. To her relief, the hidden cave was finally coming in to view, and before Yoruichi could continue with her assault of overly personal questions, Ren quickly jumped up to the entrance._

_ "And why are we here?" Ren asked her captain._

_ "I want you to meet somebody," Yoruichi answered._

_ "Meet somebody?"_

_ "Yes, meet somebody. Now get your cruel ass inside." Yoruichi gave her lieutenant a brisk shove forward, but Ren wasn't going to let her have the last word._

_ "It's not like it wasn't worth it!" she pointed out._

_ "You shouldn't tease a man like that," Yoruichi reprimanded her._

_ "Well, it's not like I'm holding back on him now," Ren commented._

_ "I suppose not, but still," Yoruichi replied._

_ "He never argued with it," Ren continued._

_ "Of course he didn't. I'm sure he was afraid you'd leave him if he did."_

_ "Well…he didn't have to wait so long to ask me to marry him. I would have said yes even after only a year of us 'dating'."_

_ "Wow, you made that poor man wait nineteen years for nothing?"_

_ "It wasn't for nothing! If he had just asked me sooner, he wouldn't have had to wait!"_

_ "A convenient story…"_

_ "Yoruichi, you are such a troll."_

_ "And you're a cock-block." _

_ "Who the hell do you want me to meet, anyways?"_

_ "Just go in and you'll find out."_

_ "Fine."_

_ And without any further delay, Ren and Yoruichi both entered the cave. Right off the bat, Ren could sense another reiatsu in the area, but she couldn't quite recognize who it belonged to. She had felt it a long time ago, though, and she knew that for sure._

_ "Oh, Kisuke!" Yoruichi called._

_ "Kisuke?" Ren muttered. The name also sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't put her finger on where she had heard it before, either._

_ "You're late." Both of the women looked up to see a man walking towards them. Ren took a moment to get a good look at him; he was relatively pale, with pale blond hair, and green eyes. She thought for a moment, but then it finally hit her._

_ "Hey! You're that peeper!" Ren shouted, causing the man to stop dead in his tracks; Yoruichi bellowed with laughter because she knew exactly what Ren was talking about. About five years ago, Ren and Yoruichi had been sparring in the hidden cave, and when they had finished for the day, they decided to take a dip in the spring that was also inside the cave. And of course, they had to get naked to do that. As the women had been stripping down to their naturally given glory, a reiatsu that shouldn't have been there suddenly popped up in the cave, and the two women went ballistic. Even though they had only been in their underclothing at the time, Ren and Yoruichi both raced through the cave to find whoever had been spying on them, but the lucky bastard had been able to escape them, until now._

_ "I-uh, I," the man stuttered._

_ "Kisuke, you never told me that!" Yoruichi laughed._

_ "How did you not recognize his reiatsu?" Ren berated her. "You've obviously known him for a while, and you want me to believe that you somehow didn't notice that it was him that was peeping in on us?!"_

_ "I was more focused on getting you naked at the time, Ren-chan," Yoruichi teased her, causing Kisuke's face to turn a light shade of red. _

_ "Why does it not surprise me that you would know a pervert like this?" Ren scoffed._

_ "Oh, hush," Yoruichi laughed, smacking Ren on the shoulder._

_ "Ren, this is Kisuke Urahara, we grew up together. Kisuke, this is Ren Hirako, my lovely lieutenant that I've been telling you about," Yoruichi announced._

_ "Hirako? Are you related to the captain of Fifth Division?" Kisuke asked her._

_ "I suppose you could say that," Ren mumbled._

_ "Are you his sister?" he wondered, which made Yoruichi chuckled. _

_ "No, I-" Ren started, but Yoruichi cut her off before she even had a chance to finish her statement._

_ "Nope! Shinji was the one to deflower my innocent little Ren-chan!" Yoruichi declared, causing Kisuke's face to turn an even brighter red._

_ "First I'm a cock-block and now I'm innocent?" Ren mused. "You have a messed up system there, Yoruichi."_

_ "Uh, s-so, you're his…wife?" Kisuke stuttered._

_ "Mhm," Ren hummed._

_ "I see," Kisuke muttered._

_ "So you grew up with her, huh?" Ren asked him, pointing at Yoruichi with her head._

_ "Yeah," Kisuke answered._

_ "My condolences. You must have had a rough childhood," Ren commented._

_ "Hey!" Yoruichi shouted._

_ "Well, I doubt that it was all sunshine and rainbows," Ren added. "It's a miracle he's still alive."_

_ "I'm charming and you know it!" Yoruichi argued._

_ "Was she always this loud?" Ren wondered, completely ignoring her captain._

_ "Uh, yes," Kisuke told her._

_ "I see," Ren muttered. "I really don't see how you're still alive."_

_ "It…wasn't easy," Kisuke finally laughed, and Ren snorted once she saw the disgruntled look that came over Yoruichi's face._

_ "See? Me and Shinji really are just trying to make you a better person," Ren pointed out, but Yoruichi merely huffed in response. The two women kept their banter up for a little longer, and as Kisuke watched them interact with one another, he noticed how oddly similar they were in some aspects and completely opposite in others. It was like they were playing opposite roles with another: whenever Yoruichi acted childish, Ren acted like a more serious adult; when Yoruichi acted 'crude', Ren was more mannerly; and whenever Yoruichi was serious, Ren started to goof off and the roles acted in vice versa as well. It was almost like they were playing a game, like they were trying be one another's opposite, but Kisuke doubted that they actually knew that they were doing it; it seemed to be subconscious to them at this point. _

_ Once Ren and Yoruichi finally stopped arguing, Ren tried to get to know Kisuke better. He was quite, shy, and unsure of himself at points, so Ren had a hard time getting him to talk at first, but when he actually did converse with her, she saw just how intelligent and perceptive he actually was. And after a while, they decided to spar in order to kill time. And even though Kisuke ended up using his shikai, Ren didn't use hers, much to Yoruichi's dismay. She mainly didn't use it because she was way too focused on Kisuke's zanpakutō to even thin to use her own; something about it just intrigued her to know end. Even the name of blade fascinated her, and she so badly wanted him to tell her everything about the blade, but with a little prodding from Yoruichi, he didn't tell her a single thing; it was probably Yoruichi's way of getting revenge on Ren for not showing her her mysterious shikai, but Ren still refused to tell the woman anything about her blades out of sheer spite for her now. _

_ Their sparring took a few hours, but eventually, Ren decided to call it a day and return to her dear husband. Considering that he hadn't tracked her down after an hour had passed, she had a feeling that Hiyori had to give him quite the walloping before she got the images that Ren had given her out of her head…_

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><p>(<em><strong>This is still the same night as last chapter)<strong>_

Now Ren couldn't sleep. She had woken up shortly after she had fallen asleep earlier, only to see that Shinji had finally rolled over to his side of the bed. She had just laid there for a while, trying to go back to her slumber, but her mind was working to fervently to let her rest. So, she quietly got out of bed, slid one of Shinji's button-up shirts on, and made her way to the outside of the warehouse. It was still storming when she went out there, and she was pelted by rain as she jumped to the warehouse's roof. She had sat there for a while, just watching the lightning nearby and listening to the thunder roar as the rain soaked her skin.

It was probably around midnight by now, maybe even a little after. Except for the storm, everything else around Ren was quiet. It was hard for her to imagine, that after such tranquil nights like this, that in just a few hours the world around her would be bustling again and the Vaizards would start yet another day of just waiting. They seemed to be waiting for a lot of things these days, like for Aizen to make his move, for Ichigo to finally come to them, for Soul Society to finally come after them; they were stuck in a waiting game and they were beginning to grow impatient with it.

"What are you doing out here in the rain, Ren?"

"I'm sorry," Ren apologized, looking up into the worried face of her husband. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"I told you I couldn't sleep without ya," he reminded her. As he sat down beside her, Ren noticed that he had thrown his pants back on, but not his shirt, probably because she was wearing it herself.

"Sorry, dear. I just woke up and couldn't go back to sleep," she told him.

"I know the feeling," he breathed. A small silence passed between them as thunder cracked in the sky above them, and Ren scooted closer to Shinji. She was starting to get chilled by all of the rain at this point, and Shinji wrapped his arm around her when he noticed that she was shaking.

"It won't be long now," Ren commented, finally breaking the silence.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked her.

"All of this, it won't last too much longer. Those Arrancar were way more developed than we thought they would be at this point. Aizen is going to make his move soon," she explained.

"And so will we," Shinji assured her.

"I know. That's why I said it wouldn't last much longer," Ren told him, laying her head against his shoulder.

"Is that why you can't go back to sleep? 'Cuz you're thinking about those Arrancar from earlier?"

"That and everything else, like if we're ready for this, what's gonna happen afterwards, or if that hot-headed kid is even going to come to us. Those Arrancar were enough to make me actually start worrying about all of this."

"You weren't worried before?"

"I wasn't so focused on it before. Now, it's right in my face and I can't ignore it."

"Are you scared?"

"No, I'm just…apprehensive about everything."

"There isn't much that I can do for that, Ren."

"You can make it go away, at least for tonight."

And she looked at him with such innocent and pleading eyes, that Shinji didn't have the heart to deny his wife's request, not that he would have anyways. Shinji quickly jumped up from his spot on the roof and picked his wife up in the process as well. He couldn't remember a time that he had ever Shunpo'd as fast as he did to get back inside the warehouse, but at least he took the time to quietly shut their bedroom door and lock it shut behind them…

_**Author's Note: I'M NOT DEAD! I am so sorry that it took me this long to update! Things got pretty hectic for me for a while there; moving to campus, the first week of class…it's a miracle I didn't rip m freaking head off. But, I didn't, and here I am! I can't guarantee that updates will com regularly at this point, but they should come more frequently than they did before. Also, I apologize for the short-than-usual chapter, but I needed you guys' opinions on something. Obviously, you can tell where the end of this chapter is leading. My question is, is that something you guys want me to put in here? Obviously it won't affect the story or anything, and if you don't want me to write that in the next chapter, I'll just give it an honorable mention and we can keep on trucking, as they say. So, you know, feel free to leave me your opinions (or votes as they were) in reviews (see what I did there?). Also, I've been thinking of a sort of theme song for Ren and Shinji, and for the other pairings in my other stories. 'Lola Montez' by Volbeat has to be one of the themes, but I can't decide for whom. I'm thinking it would best be suited to Ren or Haruka, but again, I can't decide, so please, if you wanna, leave your opinion on that in a review as well (again, see what I did there?). What's the moral of this story you may ask? Leave a review! :D Seriously, though, please review, or favorite, or follow. And, while I'm at it…**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters, just Ren and her zanpakutō. I also don't own the song 'Lola Montez' by Volbeat, just to clarify, because clarification is a beautiful thing.**_

_**And a special thank you to Chick1996, DarkTill-Indigo, bloodyhell99, Dame LeeLee, weaver yk, kitsunlover, ana, TheDivines, solarangelsuki, and ellerinae for the favorites, follows, and reviews!**_

_**Love you guys!**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Author's Note: Yeah, I'm sorry. This took way too long to get out, but you know, college. My computer has also started going bat-shit crazy on me, but I should be getting another one soon. So yeah, this one is just plainly smut. It is all rated M, so if you don't want to read that, sorry. The next chapter should be out a lot sooner than this one was, so if you aren't in to this kind of thing, just go to the end and read the second author's note or something. :D**_

Chapter Twelve- Another Gift

_"I love you, Shinji, and I trust you: that's why I married you. I've waited so long for this. I've dreamt of it for so long, and I know you'll take care of me."_

* * *

><p><em>"You can make it go away, at least for tonight."<em>

Those words would have been enough to motivate Shinji to stop the whole world for his wife. His love, his Ren, was in distress and she needed him in the most carnal way possible. And who was he to deny his wife that comfort?

* * *

><p>Ren couldn't help but grin as Shinji locked the door to the room. They had forgotten to do that once, and that was the one time that they really should have locked the door. Needless to say, one of their poor comrades didn't knock before they barged into the couple's room, and well… Hiyori couldn't look either of them in the eye for a month. At least they had a good laugh about it later on.<p>

She was also so glad that she had a husband that put so much passion into their relationship, and that passion was evident as Shinji caught her lips in another searing kiss. That one kiss was enough to make her forget what those two Arrancar looked like, and as their tongues fought for dominance, she forgot what the hell an Arrancar even was. Shinji always had the ability to kiss her senseless, not only because he was just so damn good at the act itself, but also because he put so much emotion behind every kiss, and he always held her so close and securely when he kissed her, like she would disappear if he ever let go.

Shinji was quick to unfasten the buttons of the shirt that Ren was wearing, and as it fell to the ground he couldn't help but let out a content sigh. His wife was breathtakingly beautiful, and as she stood there in nothing but her underwear, laden with want, no, need for him, she couldn't have been more beautiful. She slowly took a few steps away from him, beckoning him to follow her as she found their bed and slid up the mattress. Shinji wasted no time in joining her, connecting their lips once again as he crawled up the bed to meet her.

As he settled between her legs, Ren lightly traced her fingers down Shinji's chest, as if she were trying to memorize every contour that his torso bared, and her feathery touches were enough to send chills down his spine, especially as she continued to go further down his body. She only stopped once she reached the waistband of his pants, and even then she just barely edged her fingers under the rim and continued to tease him until she finally undid the button and zipper of the offensive piece of clothing. Shinji didn't give her time to tease him anymore; before she could even try to edge his pants off his body, Shinji hastily lifted Ren off of the bed just enough so he could reach behind her to undo her bra, and once the clasp was disconnected, he practically tore the garment off of her.

He couldn't help the moan that escaped him as he gazed at his wife in nothing but her panties. Sure, her breasts weren't the biggest in the world, but they weren't the smallest, either, and they were perfect to him. Even after all the years that they had been married, he couldn't get enough of the perfectly rounded and firm mounds, and he doubted that he ever would.

It was Ren's turn to let out a content sigh as Shinji began to kiss his way down her neck, only stopping at the juncture between her neck and shoulders so he could torment a particularly sensitive spot that she had there. She flat out moaned when he gently bit the spot, and he soothed the spot with his tongue before he continued on his journey down her body. As he kissed his way down her sternum, it was obvious what his next targets were, and Ren was fidgeting from anticipation. Once Shinji reached her breast, he didn't give her what she wanted right away. He started out slow, like he always did, and he planted lazy kisses all around her breasts and let his tongue out so he could get a small taste of the soft flesh a few times before he finally made his way to one of her nipples. As he kissed around the sensitive peak, he brought one of his hands to gently caress her free breast. As he took one of the rosy buds into his hot mouth, he kneaded the other breast with just the right amount of pressure, and Ren slowly became putty in her husband's hands.

His mouth was so warm against her cold skin, and once he took her nipple into his mouth and laved his tongue against it, it felt like sparks of electricity were firing off throughout Ren's body, and they all had a common destination. She was already so wet for him, but Shinji didn't seem like he was going to give her relief any time soon. She found a glimmer of hope though as he slid his fingers and the waistband of her panties and began to slowly pull them down her legs. Once he tossed them to the side, he rubbed his hand up her smooth leg and left it at her hip before his mouth left her breast. His pace was much quicker this time as he left a quick trail of kisses down her stomach, and once he reached his destination, Shinji saw just how ready Ren was for him.

He chuckled at her, but Ren didn't have any time to retort before he gave her a slow, tentative lick. She knew he was teasing, because if there was one thing that she knew about her husband, it was that he had no shyness whatsoever when it came to sex. He was just holding out on her, and while part of her loved the anticipation that was building in her, another part of her yearned for the released that only Shinji could give her. He seemed satisfied by the frustrated whimper that she let out though, because as soon as the noise came out of her throat, Shinji didn't hold back on her anymore. He gave her opening a small amount of attention in passing, but his main target was the little bundle of nerves that he knew would drive her crazy. He planted a small kiss on the bud before he started to trace slow circles around it with his tongue. On airless moan escaped his wife before her hips jerked against him, and with a satisfied smirk he grabbed her hips and held them against the bed.

Ren knew she wasn't going to last long when her husband finally started to give her sex the attention that she so desperately needed. She was already falling apart even though he had just teased her, but when he dragged his tongue against the sensitive bud, she almost lost it right then and there. Oh, she blessed the day that he got that piercing… He swirled his tongue over the nub a few more times, helping to build the fire that was burning deep within Ren's belly, before he clasped his lips around it and gave it a light suckle. His tongue was back on her in seconds as pleasurable electricity started to flood through her body and her hips bucked harshly against his hands as moans fell out of her mouth at volume, but right before she reached the peak of her ecstasy, Shinji pulled her away from her, leaving her high and dry.

"Oh, you bastard," she groaned, breathing out deeply as her back arched back down to the bed.

"I'm sure you'll make me pay for that later," Shinji chuckled, hovering back over her. He leaned down and gave her a slow, passionate kiss, as a sort of armistice. It just made Ren's situation even worse though, because she could taste herself on him, and that just made her writhe against him yet again because it brought back the memory of the pleasure she felt when he did that to her. Without warning, Ren hastily pushed Shinji's pants and underwear down his legs, using her own legs to push them off completely. Ren leaned up to smash her lips against his, distracting him as she eased her hand down to grip him. He groaned into her mouth and shuddered as her fingers wrapped around his shaft.

Ren let out her own groan once she felt how hard he was. It was like a bar of steel cloaked in velvet, and Ren couldn't wait any longer. She needed him now, and she had a feeling he needed her just as badly.

"Please, Shinji," Ren whimpered, and he was far from making protests to her request. He stared down at her face as he lined himself up with her entrance; he wanted to see the look of bliss in her eyes once he finally gave her what she wanted. And once he pushed through her folds and entered her, he got what he wanted. Her eyes glazed over; her pupils dilated and her eyes turned an even darker burnt orange than they already were. Her lips parted beautifully as a noise of sheer pleasure and joy came out of her, and her back arched as they were finally connected.

Ren's silken walls were constricted tautly around him; she was so tight, and she always had been. He could never quite wrap his mind around how she stayed like that, especially after all the times that they had been joined in coital bliss together. He was by no means a small man, but he would leave that thought for later. Right now, he was going to focus on bringing the woman he loved to the peak of her ecstasy.

Shinji quickly leaned down and caught Ren's lips with his own right as he started to begin his rhythmic movements within her. Ren tried to kiss him back, but that was difficult to do because with every thrust she felt the overwhelming urge to throw her head back in ecstasy. She knew that neither of them would last long, but she was going to ride it out for as long as she could. With all of the willpower that she had left in her, Ren started to lift her hips up so she could meet Shinji thrust for thrust, allowing him to penetrate even deeper. His groans were like music to her ears and they caused the heat in her belly to grow even hotter.

"Shinji," came her broken moan. "I can't…hold on…much longer"

"Just a little longer, baby," he assured her, and she could tell by the way his voice was breaking that he was being truthful. His thrusts were becoming more and more erratic, and as his pace increased she was drawing closer and closer to the edge. She held onto him tightly, lightly dragging her nails down his back in the process to urge him on.

It wasn't long before the fire coiling in her was too much for Ren to handle. With one final cry of her husband's name, all the built up tension in her body just snapped. She threw her head back in bliss as wave after wave of pleasure flooded through her, and her body trembled against Shinji's. It was amazing that she didn't wake the whole warehouse up with her cries, but stranger things had happened.

Her walls clenching around him was just too much for Shinji. With a few more thrusts, he was able to find his own release, and her body milked him for all that he was worth. He continually groaned her name as he came down from his sexual high, and before he even realized it, Ren had leaned up to place a small, chaste kiss on his lips.

"I love you," she breathlessly muttered, leaning her forehead against his and looking straight into his eyes.

"You're gonna kill me one of these days, you know that, right, Ren?" he replied, his voice just as breathless as hers. She chuckled at his remark.

"Like you would complain," she breathed.

"No, I would not," Shinji agreed. "Fuck, I love you, Ren."

"I know you do, chief," she chuckled. "Thank you for that, by the way."

"Pfft, no need to thank me," he smirked. "I enjoyed that just as much as you did."

"I'm sure you did. But thank you anyways, because I feel a lot better now."

"Well, anything I can do to help."

"So how about we finally call this day over, huh?" Shinji only chuckled in agreement, and with one last kiss he gently eased out of her. She let out a disgruntled sigh, missing the feeling of him already, which just made him chuckle again as laid down on the bed and pulled her against him. She may have felt a little indignant at his chuckle, but she didn't let him know that; he didn't need a bigger ego. Instead, she just laid her head against his chest and tangled her legs with his, trying to get as close to him as possible before exhaustion finally took her over and she fell into a deep, content sleep.

Shinji was exhausted, too, but he stayed awake a while longer to make sure that his lover found the slumber that she so desperately needed. He just watched for some time, watching as breathes that came from her parted lips evened out and her body finally stilled for the night. It was in moments like this that he found true happiness, when he could just stare down at the love of his life and let the realization hit that she was his, and that he was hers, and that he would be damned if he let anyone take that from them. The last thoughts that went through his mind before he finally wandered off to sleep were peaceful ones, ones that revolved around the woman that was currently using him as a pillow. Thoughts of her also plagued his sleep, and that was something that he would never complain about.

_**Author's Note: I hope that wasn't too rough. This was my first time writing something like that, so I hope this chapter was worth the wait and that I wrote it well. If not, well, practice makes perfect, right? : ) But yeah, leave reviews, because, you know, they may or may not incentivize me to write the next chapter faster (they will!) And favorite or follow if you already haven't! Love you guys!**_

_**And (this part is a little long…) a special thank you to Trippin of the wall, Nycel, ScarlettShadow96792, TSUKIKO CHILD OF THE MOON, gOthiCkUrOcHo69, LiteSadistofElements, amerdism, Snowing Crimson, bluebelle94, Hachikonohime, kimi13796, CrazyEllaphant, qweenashleyfox, cottoncandydeath12, Dendule 95, Lone-Wolf-Ranger, and a few Guests for all of the love! I hope you enjoyed!**_

_**And disclaimer: I own nothing of Bleach, sadly. I only created Ren and her zanpakutō.**_


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen-Tension

The tension was so thick in the Vaizard warehouse that you could have cut it with a knife. Of course, said knife would probably be shattered in the process and said tension would still be just fine afterwards. Regardless, all of the Vaizards were pretty tense at the moment, not that they weren't always tense in some form or another, but their tension had been significantly higher in the past few days. The Arrancars had everyone waiting on bated breath, especially Ren.

Ren in no way, shape, or form doubted her abilities or the abilities of her fellow Vaizards, but she couldn't help but worry about things. Based on what she saw from the two Arrancar that nearly killed Ichigo and two of his friends, things were a lot worse than she had originally thought. Sure, she expected Aizen's little followers to be strong, but not this strong. And that had only been two of them! There was no telling how many more of them there were, or how strong they were in comparison to those two. And to top it all off, Ichigo still hadn't shown up.

And even beyond all of that, a group of Shinigami decided to show up! That meant that the Vaizards were virtually stuck inside their warehouse, so they couldn't exactly go out and try to convince Ichigo to join them again. Ren was about the only one that had left the warehouse in the past few days, and that was just to quickly run and grab some food. And of course, with all the tension and then the fact that they were stuck inside the warehouse, some of the Vaizards were, of course, a little crankier then normal. Ren was starting to spend the majority of her days trying to keep the peace between some of her comrades, and while Ren loved them with all of her being, they were beginning to annoy her. If she didn't have to leave and get food just about every day and got a break from them in the process, Ren may have seriously contemplated killing a few of them. The whole thing just made Ren more and more irritated at the Shinigami that had barged into Karakura Town, but she had to give them credit, because they did have their uses, particularly when a large group of Arrancar showed up. She could only assume that Ichigo got his ass handed to him again, but the Shinigami had managed to knock off a few Arrancar. Sadly, the strongest out of the bunch got away, but still, five dead Arrancar were better than no dead Arrancar, even if they weren't some of the stronger ones.

At the moment, Ren was making a food-run, so she had plenty of time to contemplate this as she carried her bags of groceries down the street. She had thought about trying to track Ichigo down, but she decided against it because seeing one of the Vaizards might just piss the kid off a little more. She also thought about stopping by Kisuke's, but again, she decided against it. While she would love to talk to the shopkeeper and her former captain to see what they thought about the whole Arrancar situation, Ren figured she should stay well away from the shop in order to avoid running into Ichigo or any of the other Shinigami. The whole situation just led to one dismal walk for Ren, and she couldn't say that things were much better back at the warehouse.

When she walked into the warehouse, the first thing that Ren heard was Shinji talking. She was mildly shocked when she felt Ichigo's reiatsu in the warehouse, but she also felt a little relieved. Now that the Vaizards had a new toy to play with, maybe, maybe they wouldn't be so tense and cranky. Emphasis on the maybe. From what Ren had heard out of the conversation already, Ichigo was being a little shit, talking about how he'd use them, and of course, Shinji just had to ask him how he'd do that, to which Ichigo replied by saying that he'd rip what he needed out of them with force, and of course, Ren could not contain her snicker any longer at that point, and once said snicker was let out, all of the Vaizards plus Ichigo looked about ready to piss themselves. Apparently they didn't see her walk in.

"Careful, he might like it if you use force," Ren warned him with a wry smile on her face. Ichigo looked at her like she had head three heads for a moment before a look of realization finally came over him.

"You!" he muttered.

"Ren!" Shinji called. "When did you get back?"

"Just now, of course," she replied. "It seems like I made it back just in time, too. Nice to see you again, Ichigo."

"You're really a Vaizard?" the orange-haired teen asked her, causing the woman in question to slightly tilt her head.

"Yes, why do you ask?" she cautiously asked him. She was mildly afraid of his answer, because she had a hunch that it would piss her off.

"You don't…look that tough," he told her. And what do you know, she was right! His answer did piss her off!

"And you look like a fucking idiot with his head up his ass, but you don't see me being all judgmental towards you," she chirped, smiling the entire time.

"Holy shit, I love her," she heard Shinji mutter. Poor Ichigo looked a little too shocked to make a comeback.

"Ah, well, anyways, let me get by with these groceries and you can continue to 'force' Shinji to do your bidding," Ren chuckled, shuffling her way past Ichigo and jumping up to the same floor that Shinji was on.

"Well, don't you look smug," Ren commented as she passed him. Shinji still had a huge smirk plastered on face from Ren's earlier comment. He couldn't deny that he felt an extra smidgen of pride for his wife when she verbally bitch slapped Ichigo.

"Try not to hurt him too bad, eh?" she added, before she walked off to put the groceries up. None of the other Vaizards followed to help her, but she understood why. They all wanted to see what this kid was made of, and they were inevitably about to find out. With that in mind, Ren unpacked the groceries like a mad woman and sped back to the others, only to get there just in time to see Shinji spiraling through the air. Obviously, Ichigo had not been the one to do that.

"Damn it, Hiyori! What have I told you about hitting him when he is attempting to be serious?!" Ren shouted.

"It's not my fault your damn husband was pussyfooting around!" Hiyori shouted back. Ren let out a huff, but she didn't say anymore. If Shinji had really been pussyfooting around, then Ren could understand why Hiyori knocked the hell out of him. Hiyori wasn't very patient anyways, and in a tense situation like they were in…it isn't hard to imagine that her already thin patience had virtually disappeared.

"Husband?" she heard Ichigo shout in disbelief, which caused Ren to snicker again.

"Dumbass," she muttered.

"That was uncalled for," Shinji grumbled as he walked over to his wife, rubbing his face the entire time.

"Isn't it usually?" Ren chuckled. "Ah, well, at least it saves you a little bit of trouble, right?" Shinji only grumbled again at that. Ren was about to say something else, but as she opened her mouth, she felt a sudden and massive change in Hiyori's reiatsu.

"Well damn, does she actually want to kill him?" she muttered seeing that Hiyori had pulled out her mask.

"Better him than me," Shinji mumbled, although he was just as surprised as she was to see Hiyori using her mask against him. It was safe to say that all of the Vaizards were pretty surprised, even though they probably should have been able to guess that she would have done something that drastic. To his credit, Ichigo did hold his own; he still got the hell beat out of him, but he hadn't died yet, so that was good. He was obviously afraid of his Hollow, though, which was evident because he had yet to call on his Bankai, no matter how much he bled or got knocked around. But, even if he was stubborn, Ren couldn't help but admire him a little. He had yet to give up, so it was apparent to Ren that he had a strong will, and she could only hope that that will wouldn't get broken in the fight against Aizen. Assuming that he made it long enough to fight Aizen; with the way that Hiyori was going, the possibilities of that were slowly dropping.

"Should we step in, Shinji?" Ren asked her husband, never taking her eyes off of the fight.

"Nah, there wouldn't be much of a point to it. If he won't let his Hollow out, then he's as good as dead anyways," he told her. It may have sounded a little callous, but it was true. If Ichigo refused to let his Hollow out, then he would end up dying against Aizen anyways, and Ren understood that so she hummed in agreement with Shinji.

"_I think she's going to kill him_," Hito commented, the zanpakutō finally making himself known after quite a long period of silence, which was unusual for him. It was bad when even her zanpakutō were being affected by all of the tension that was going around. Then again, since they were extensions of her soul, it only made sense that they would feel her stress, even if they dealt with it differently than she did.

"_I don't. Surely he isn't that afraid of his Hollow that he'd rather die than let it out,_" Kiri countered. Well, at least someone had some hope in the situation.

"_Ren?_" Hito prodded.

"I can't tell with this kid," Ren mumbled, causing Shinji to turn his attention towards her.

"What do you mean?" he asked her.

"Hm?" Ren hummed, apparently unware that she had voiced her thought.

"You said you couldn't tell with this kid," Shinji reminded her.

"Oh, that. Don't mind that. The two 'guests' in my head are debating whether he'll die or not," Ren assured him.

"And?"

"And what?"

"What do you think?"

"I already said I couldn't tell with this kid." Shinji scoffed at her reminder.

"If anyone should be able to tell, it's you," he pointed out.

"Maybe, but I hardly feel like putting forth the effort to take a deeper look at his reiatsu. Let's just wait and see," Ren told him, looking back towards the fight. It was true that with her being more of the sensory type, that Ren could have concentrated on Ichigo's reiatsu to see if she could feel if his Hollow was about to come out or not, but she hadn't been lying when she said she didn't feel like it. And unlike some people, she had enough patience to just wait and let things take their course.

She didn't really need that much patience, though, because it seemed that as soon as she turned her attention back to the fight at hand, that Hiyori hit Ichigo one final time and the kid finally lost his shit. Only half of his face was covered by a Hollow mask, and in an instant he had his hand wrapped around Hiyori's throat and was shoving her into a wall. The Vaizards were quick, and in the blink of an eye, they had Ichigo pinned to the ground with all of their swords pointed at him. Instead of joining in on the 'dogpile', as it was, Ren decided to go to Hiyori instead, which was a good thing, because it would have been rather difficult for her to find room in it for herself and her two tanto. Shinji was the one that broke Ichigo's mask off.

On the bright side of Hiyori almost getting choked to death, it was finally agreed that the Vaizards would teach Ichigo how to suppress his Hollow. It had taken a while, but some progress had finally been made.

* * *

><p>Ren knew that this wasn't going to end well. Ichigo was far too hotheaded and impatient for it to. Almost immediately after the whole choking incident (which everyone silently agreed to not talk about for Hiyori's sake) they had thrown Ichigo onto the 'Super Hiyori Walker', or as Ren like to call it, the Glorified Fucking Elliptical. Sure, it drained the user's spirit energy, but it was still far from 'super'. It looked like Ichigo had similar feelings about the walker if the irritated look on his face was any indication. Ren was just counting down the moments until he snapped.<p>

"It's way past lunch time, ain't it?" Shinji mumbled. "Ren-chan! Make me something!"

"Nope," was his wife's immediate reply.

"Why not?" Shinji whined.

"Because Mashiro and Hachigen are probably almost back with the food," Ren reminded him. For once, Ren hadn't been the one to go out and get food. Instead, Hachi had offered to go, and Mashiro just…Mashiro just had to go to let out some energy. The poor thing just didn't do well with being stuck inside the warehouse for prolonged periods of time.

Of course, right about the time that Shinji started whining about being hungry, Love started laughing his ass off over some manga while Rose was trying to ask him about some music, Kensei started scolding Lisa over not keeping an eye on Ichigo which caused Lisa to start calling out a rhythm to Ichigo in an overly monotone and uninterested voice, and to top it all off Hiyori started yelling at Shinji to quit whining. All the noise just seemed to merge together and form one giant ball of annoyance, and just like Ren had predicted, Ichigo snapped.

"Stop that shit!" the orange-haired teen yelled, which was followed by him throwing the Glorified Fucking Elliptical in Hiyori's direction. And Hiyori being, well, Hiyori, grabbed Shinji and used him as a shield. Ren could only cringe as the walker hit her husband's face.

"One of these days, she's going to cause permanent damage," Ren muttered, as she crouched down by her husband once Hiyori finally let go of him.

"You'll…still love me…won't you?" Shinji asked her.

"I suppose so," Ren breathed. "It'd be pointless to divorce you this late in the game."

"Thanks," Shinji grumbled.

"Oh hush," Ren scoffed, leaning down to wipe the blood off of his forehead. "You know I'm just dicking around with you. Now get up and stop these two from actually killing each other."

"They get along well, don't they?" Rose chuckled, looking on as Ichigo and Hiyori argued.

"Swimmingly so," Ren snickered.

"They're loud," Lisa commented.

"What's going on with Berry-tan?" Mashiro asked as she and Hachigen finally got back and joined the others.

"He doesn't seem to like the Super Hiyori Walker. Hiyori probably should have explained it better," Love told her.

"That thing is annoying no matter how you explain it," Kensei grumbled.

"You really want me to go and break that up?" Shinji asked his wife, pointing over to the fighting pair.

"Yep," Ren chirped. "No need in them tearing the whole warehouse down over that damn glorified elliptical."

"Fine," Shinji huffed. For the most part, everything went smoothly when Shinji explained the purpose for the, as he put it, 'Shitty Hiyori Walker' and told Ichigo to stop being a little shit. Again, it went smoothly for the most part. It only went "smoothly" because nobody lost a limb in the process. Because of course Ichigo went on a rant over how ridiculous this all was, that he could go for days on the walker, and that he was getting fed up with the Vaizards. And of course, Shinji told him to 'shut the fuck up' because he had no clue what he was talking about. Ichigo looked surprised when Shinji mentioned Aizen and the Hōgyoku, but he didn't have too much time to think about it before he was rendered unconscious.

"Well, ten points for the warning there, Shinji," Ren commented, giving her husband a mildly cross look.

"What? It got the job done, didn't it?" he retorted.

"Yes, but if Love hadn't caught him, you'd have let the kid fall flat on his face," Ren pointed out.

"What's yer point?" Shinji asked her, with what could only be described as a shit-eating grin. Ren just shook her head at him.

"You're not right in the head," she mumbled.

"You're the one that married him," Lisa reminded her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I realize that. Anyways, we should get this show on the road," Ren pointed out.

"Let's see of this kid can actually make it," Kensei agreed, and after Hachi put up another barrier, they made their way to their underground training room, where Ichigo would either learn to control his Hollow or his Hollow would consume him.

_**Author's Note: Well….Sorry it's kind of a short chapter. It has been like a year since I last posted for this story, though, so I have to get back in the groove of things. I'm sorry for the whole making you wait a year thing, too. I actually do feel like an ass for it. I'm not even going to promise to put chapters out faster from now on, because I'll just feel like more of a dick if something happens and I can't. Of course, I really doubt it'll be another year before I post a new chapter. I'd expect it within the month, at least. **_

_**So yeah, sorry! And thank for sticking around! Please leave me some feedback and whatnot because it certainly motivates me! I hope you guys enjoy!**_

_**And a special thank you to Buzooka Zooka, ILovepenguins24, The Truth Seeker, xxDosSubmarinosxx, animexxfreakxx, blob80, lucaskid1000, cutepennamehere, Akabane Karma, TishaLiz, AdamThorn, Aknamkanon, Darkening Light 666, Clymentined, Onoxis Draconus, Lady Syndra, Mokasakura, kanna-yamamoto, Pierced Pretty and Perverse, Ulquiorra-Schiffer-4, and Sheriffgirl.**_

_**Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Bleach or any of its characters. I wish I did, but I don't. I only own Ren and Hito and Kiri.**_


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